


The Woman in the Woods

by churros11



Category: Fate: The Winx Saga (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cutting, Drama, F/M, Magic, Mystery, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Some Fluff, Swear Words
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29360568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churros11/pseuds/churros11
Summary: This is a planned ten-chapter story divided into two parts. Part 1 revolves around Saul Silva and original character Maja, wherein, after escaping jail, Saul finds himself recuperating in a remote cabin. But though everything seems fine, he can't help but feel that there's something wrong, even as he goes increasingly attracted to the woman taking care of him. Part 2 sees Saul trying to find his way back to the woman in the woods.Part 1 is heavily focused on Saul and  Maja, with only one other character from the series appearing. Characters tagged here will eventually appear in part 2.
Relationships: Saul Silva & Original Female Character(s), Saul Silva/Original Character(s), Saul Silva/Sky
Comments: 58
Kudos: 62





	1. Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't grow up watching the Winx Club and not very familiar with the mythologies in the series. So, I'll make some effort to stay authentic on that end, but I'm really basing this off the Netflix show. Btw, I can't say I love the show, but I'm in love with Rob James-Collier and can't get enough of anything he does (which is so few!). Here's my attempt in making him appear in a story, since I also am loving Saul Silva way too much.  
>   
> The attempt here is a slow burn romance, which *sigh* there might not be that many audience for, but I'm a sucker for it. If you have the patience to read through possibly 10 chapters (this might change depending on how tightly I can construct this story -- I'm still working out the second part in my head) you might just enjoy. That said, please bear with me as I'm new in writing fanfiction. I am also a very slow writer (and working on something else much larger than this one).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saul realizes that he's not gonna be put on trial and needs to escape, only to end up lost in the forest.

There was not gonna be a trial.

It took Saul forever to understand this, the better part of the week at least. The remoteness of his jail, which should have only been a holding cell in the first place, coupled with the fact that he wasn’t allowed to ring anyone, not even a defender, should have clued him in. In those four days, what he knew was that he was being isolated, so it made sense that they wouldn’t want to give him even one phone call. His arrest had been significantly questionable in the first place. There was that the queen herself made the arrest, one with a dubious charge given that she knew everything that occurred that fateful day, then the shock of finding out that his friend, Sky’s father, was alive after all these years. He knew the trial was gonna be a sham and that he was essentially convicted already; he just didn’t think they wouldn’t go through the motions of it, that he would actually be deprived of any semblance of fairness. It took him four days to realize this and it came after being given his latest meal, with him asking when he would get his defender and being told “soon” once again, the guard smirking as he left. The falseness of that one word echoed in his brain. Suddenly, it was clear: there would be no trial. And this, this cell, this was it. He wasn’t going to be transferred out to some normal prison like a common criminal. He was being tucked away where no one will find him nor hear whatever he had to say.

He studied his cell. It was square, walled solid on three sides, barred on one. There was a sink opposite the bed, next to it a toilet. Lovely. Then there was his bed. Had this been a normal prison cell, there would have been a table and a chair, and maybe some books. He’d also maybe have a cellmate, or other prisoners in other cells. But there was no one and there was nothing, as though they intended to kill him with boredom. To be fair, if he was to spend an eternity inside this, no one to talk to, no book to read, nothing to occupy him other than his thoughts day in, day out, no scenery, just the dank walls and the slit above that could barely be called a window, maybe boredom wasn’t such a benign way to die. But he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to think, organize his thoughts. What did he want to do? How will he do it? And why the fuck wouldn’t they just give him even a goddamn magazine to read!

He took a deep breath.

His dinner remained on the floor, near the bars of his cell, set there by that smirking guard who wouldn’t just tell him that he’d never get a defender, or a trial, or feel sunlight again. He glanced at the cooling plate of some godawful sandwich that probably had sand rubbed in it especially for him, and wished they could have provided a fork or, better yet, a knife. But of course, no one was that stupid.

He realized then that he was thinking of escaping because what he wanted—answer to question #1—was to get out of this fucking cell. So, to answer question #2, he’d need something sharp to defend himself with. But he had to temper the thought. He didn’t know where he was; he was knocked unconscious on his way here and, when he came to, they covered his head with sack so he wouldn’t see anything—he really should have had an idea that he was being locked away from everyone then.

He combed his fingers through his hair. “What have you got yourself into now, Saul?” he asked himself. Then he looked down again at his dinner. Was that a ceramic plate they put it on? Maybe some people were that stupid after all.

///

That was a terrible idea. Well, if he had to be honest, it was a good idea up until the point that he got himself stabbed pretty brutally in the very center of his abdomen. He underestimated the number of guards he had to face as well as the number of hallways out of this fucking castle. That’s right, castle! He should have known that it was an actual dungeon he was being held in. But, for one, there was a toilet in his cell. And a bed! Dungeons only had wheat for bed and a bucket in the corner, plus a chain screwed to the floor, because dungeons belonged in the middle ages. Also, his cell did not smell like shit. It smelled old and moldy, but not shitty.

Or he could just blame his rashness. He should have studied the guards more, see how many there possibly were, maybe get some information from Bob (or so he called him), the one who delivered his meals. He should have listened to any unintended conversations around him, wait until he had a glimmer of what was upstairs, maybe then he’d had some idea of how much foot traffic he’d need to cover and guards he was to face. Maybe he could have befriended Bob and then convince him to let him out to breathe some fresh air from time to time. But no, good old Saul thought that spending at least a month in his cell was too much. He wanted out the very second he formed the vaguest outline of an escape plan. This vague plan was formulated around the assumption that he was in a remote prison with the inhabitants either too far apart or too few, or both—a structure that was at most four storeys high, with some thirty cells and what he really needed to worry about was the outside perimeter. He assumed that guards were minimal because had only ever seen Bob. There was one other guard (whom he didn’t bother naming), the one who threw him into his cell that first day, but no one else. So, not only was he unprepared when, upon reaching the top of the stairs from his cell, he found pristine marble floors, vast hallways, intricate ceilings and ornate furniture; there were also roving guards everywhere who were better armed and had not had a diet of bad sandwiches and paranoid thoughts for the last four days. Given that, it was a wonder that he managed to get out with only one stab wound.

But he was out, that’s what mattered. He was running through a forest that he didn’t recognize, which itself presented a new set of hazards, but at least he was out. Now, the first thing he needed to do was not bleed to death.

When he was sure that he was sufficiently away from the castle and that he had lost his pursuers, he sat down behind a tree and checked his wounds.

Yup, it was bad. No wonder he bled so much. It wasn’t just a stab; it was a slice going from above his navel to the right. It slowly leaked blood, which was better than gushing it out he supposed, some already crusting, but it needed a better stopper than his unsteady hand. He tore his sleeve off and wrapped it around his torso as tightly as he could while still being able to breathe. When that was done, he looked to the sky. It was almost light. He could already see the dark turning bluish to his right. Soon, the sun will be up there.

He grunted when he stood. Fuck, it hurt. Holding on to the tree, he decided that the best direction to take was north for no other reason that the castle was south. He paused to listen and only heard the wind rustling through the trees, some bird taking flight, insects buzzing, but no twigs breaking, no thudding of running footsteps.

He took a deep breath, then began heading north. If he could find water, that would be great. Even better, shelter and food and, since he was on a streak of wishing for impossible things, a human being with a heart of gold who would tend to his wounds and also hide him from the baddies chasing him without needing any kind of explanation in doing so.

If only.

///

He was dying. This wasn’t the first time he faced this possibility and the thought hardly made him blink, but still, that didn’t change the fact that his breath came in gulps, that his legs were growing weaker by the minute, that his throat was parched and, worse of all, the pain in his stomach had all but disappeared except for a small throbbing which wasn’t at all commensurate to how bad the wound was. He hadn’t found water. Or shelter. Or, for that matter, a human being with a heart of gold. What he found were trees, more trees, a clearing and then, yes, even more trees. He would die in this forest, lost and alone, and possibly never to be found. Sky, who right now might be wondering where he was aside from dealing with a suddenly-alive parent, would then have to process the information that his other father-figure might also be dead. But they would never be sure because they would never find his body. They’d never know that he was somewhere here in this stupid forest, his body eaten by wolves and bears before it rotted.

The sun had gone past its highest point and was now moving to the west. He’d have a few hours of light still, but maybe not that many before he croaked his last. He collapsed against a tree, sliding down it and carefully placing the sword he had stolen on his lap. What an idiot he was. Such a stupid idea to just escape without planning ahead. What would his students say? What would Sky say? Farah? Ben?

The Specialist’s Headmaster, downed by a half-assed plan of escape, lost in the forest never to be found.

At least Andreas would probably be happy about that.

Andreas. He had just a brief glimpse of him as he stepped out of that limo. A ghost would not have made such a dramatic entrance or added the detail of aging him, coloring his golden head white in places. Yet, when he looked at Andreas, it was through a prism of surrealness, of unreality, his mind pushing him to accept that what stood there was a living, breathing human being, but which he couldn’t fully believe because he was back there again, on that hill when he plunged his sword into his torso. Andreas was clutching his stomach as blood seeped out his fingers, on his knees while Saul hurried away, praying that he would be able to stop the massacre in time. In the years that followed, he sometimes entertained the thought that his friend might have survived even though there was no reason to think so. Surely, if that were true, the first thing Andreas would have done was to creep back into Alfea and claim his son, Sky. Sixteen years was an inconceivable amount of time to be absent from your son’s life.

As Saul’s thoughts drifted to the past, the horror he felt upon, first, killing his greatest friend, then being part of the annihilation of an entire village of people, washed over him. He closed his eyes.

 _They were blood witches_ , he thought. _Rosalind said they were blood witches._

_Was that supposed to make it better?_

///

The sound of something hooting woke him. He started and immediately grabbed his sword, pointing it in front of him. But there was nothing there, only a mourning dove calling on another then angrily clapping its wings. He checked his blood-soaked shirt, lifting it and seeing his blood-soaked wrap. He sighed then looked again above him. How long was he out? The sun had gone lower than he last saw it, giving him two hours of sunlight left, maybe fewer.

When a squirrel appeared next to him, he almost jumped out of his skin. Recovering, he looked at the squirrel who studied him to see if maybe he was something it could eat. In his state, the animal might have a fifty-fifty chance. All it would take was one tiny bite and who knew what kind of bacteria resided in this creature’s mouth that would kill his increasingly weak body.

He sighed. It was truly a sad day when he would look at a squirrel and estimate that he only had a one in two chance to defend himself against it, even with a sword. Thankfully, the squirrel wasn’t tempted, just there staring curiously at him.

“Do you know the way out of here?” he asked.

The squirrel tilted its head and then scuttled away.

“Oh, don’t be like that. Couldn’t you give a hint?”

The squirrel disappeared somewhere behind the tree he leaned on, which Saul wasn’t interested in looking.

“Suit yourself,” he said before preparing for another bout of walking aimlessly.

But then he realized, he was hearing something that he should have been listening for this whole time.

A stream.

This seemed to invigorate his dehydrated body so that, with just a little grunt and using the sword as a cane, he managed to get himself up and give all efforts into finding that stream.

He managed to get a couple hundred feet, walking in a frenzy, sure that the stream was just beyond those copse of trees, or up that hill, or just at that slope, before he realized that he didn’t know where the sound was coming from anymore. Maybe at first he was able to tell—northwest from where he began—and he may have imagined that he was getting closer to it, the sound getting louder and louder. But now, as he stood in what looked like the same set of trees in the same flat, grassy, mossy ground, he had lost any sense of direction. The steady sound of the stream, making him even thirstier, seemed to come from all directions. Not only that, it somehow blocked all other noise. It was all he could hear, so loud yet he couldn’t spot a single drop of water, not a single moist patch of soil. The buzz of the insects was gone, the rustling trees, the tweeting birds, rush of wings, all gone, replaced by one infallible sound. Water.

Gods, he was thirsty. He fell on his knees. Looking back days later, he would think that this was the point he gave in to his delirium, but at this very moment, he had just a singular thought in his mind. To find that fucking stream.

He chose a direction at random and walked straight. He wasn’t aware how loud he was being, how carelessly he stepped on broken twigs, how many times his knee hit blocks of stones, how much bruises he was acquiring, the many falls he took or the sudden appearance of a bush or a tree that wasn’t there just a second ago, how branches slapped his face. He lost hold of his sword several times and contemplated leaving it behind, but he somehow refused to do so. He staggered in the direction he had chosen, believing he would stumble upon a brook or a river, ignoring the other options he had which were just dangling on the trees, fruits he could squeeze liquid out of. Instead of looking for water the traditional way, he lumbered toward the sound even though it had no direction anymore, while above, the sun moved across the sky, lowering further and further.

A tree hit him. His head met its trunk hard enough for him stagger a couple of steps back before crumpling to the ground, staring at the sky. He didn’t even have the energy to clutch his head or swear. His view was blocked by tall trees, by leaves and branches that went in circles clockwise in his vision, again, and again, and again. Arms spread wide, he closed his eyes because praying the vertigo would stop was making him dizzier as he studied the way his sight went in circles, reset, circled, and reset, without appearing to slow down no matter how hard he prayed.

The sound of the stream was gone and he sighed knowing that he had probably sent himself far away from it and there was no point trying to get up. Maybe there wasn’t even a stream and he just hallucinated hearing it. His throat bobbed up and down, extracting the remaining saliva from his mouth down his esophagus. His abdomen felt an unusual kind of numb, pulsating in a muted way that was also raw because his skin was torn when it shouldn’t be, and under that skin was muscle that were also disjointed, and further were his frayed organs and blood that must have pooled there. He felt the bruise that it formed along his right side and tried to think if his stomach was supposed to be on the left side or right. Left. So it must be his liver that had been sliced. 

The world was dimming as he wondered where the tree that hit him came from. It wasn’t there, he swore, then suddenly he was banging his head against it. If he could laugh, he would have. Instead, he just smiled, blinking at the branches in the trees pointing upwards to the sky, the white clouds moving clockwise along with the leaves of the trees. A bird took flight from a branch, its wings flapping before it caught the wind and it glided through. As far as sights to have while dying, this beats a plain white ceiling and overhead lights in a hospital. Well, if the vertigo wasn’t there and his vision wasn’t dimming, it was definitely a good view to last clap his eyes on.

Even better, an apparition drifted into his view, that of a woman, so beautiful, he knew instantly that he was hallucinating. Her eyes were large browns, worried, as she knelt down next to him. Her hair was blonde and unusually long, reaching well past her waist. It was untied, cascading down from her middle-part on top that divine head. Her eyebrows were a dark brown in contrast to her hair. She had a cleft on her chin and her lips barely had a cupid’s bow, the upper as heavy as the lower. He had the urge to reach up and touch them. But if this was a dream, surely she’d reach down and kiss him instead. But she was preoccupied, her eyes raking the length of him, too interested in the mess around his abdomen. He almost told her not to bother, but he had no energy to do so.

Her hands were gentle as she investigated his wound. He followed her movements as she lifted his shirt and then looked under his poorly made bandage fully saturated with blood. He noticed that her upper arm was covered in tattoos, and her forearm in precise white lines, maybe a dozen, beginning from elbow to a few inches above her wrist. He thought at first they were simply white tattoos, but decided that they were actually scars.

Then she pressed her hands down and all thoughts he had of her gentleness disappeared. The pain that erupted was acute, snapping him back to himself, making him consider that she might be real after all. He threw her a confused look as though asking why she hurt him. But her only response was a panicked whimper, her lips tightly shut, which was the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness.


	2. Dreams and Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saul's not doing well, saved by a stranger but not yet out of the woods--so to speak--and trapped in an endless loop of dreams and nightmares. But are they really just nightmares? We also get a little glimpse into Maja, the titular Woman in the Woods.

There were glimpses of wood, of a room, a ceiling, shadows. There was a window that showed bright sunlight, other times a night so dark it terrified him. There was excruciating pain, but sometimes nothing except the comfort of being under a warm blanket and his head on a soft pillow. He felt her presence most times, and when she wasn’t there, he felt the hopelessness of dying alone. There was the feel of her fingers, brushing his brow. There was the sharp jab of a needle. She was always wearing black.

Sometimes he’d wake up to her sitting next to him on the bed, holding his hand. Only, she wasn’t really holding his hand; she was cleaning the cuts on his arm, or injecting him with something. There were times when she’d register surprise upon finding him awake; her mouth would move and he’d hear a voice but somehow he couldn’t seem to connect them, as though she was speaking too slowly and the voice came too softly. He couldn’t have paid attention anyway. Nothing made sense to him, not the house, not her voiceless words, not her. All he knew was that he felt too heavy and the air was too dry, and he liked the way her lashes framed her eyes, the shape of her mouth, and the feel of her hand as she fussed over him.

Other times, she’d be sitting on a chair, her feet up the nightstand, reading a book. Or she’d be doing something else in the house—opening drawers, folding laundry, sweeping the floor—and she’d be humming to herself. She’d glance at him briefly, stop upon noticing that his eyes were open, squint for a while, then smile as though it was a usual day. She couldn’t be real.

One time he thought he was well enough to get up, but immediately realize this was premature the moment pain shoot up his belly when he tried to move; then proceed to losing consciousness. When he could stay up longer than a few seconds and had more sense than attempt sitting up, he took stock of himself and found the many cuts on his right arm where he had torn his sleeve off, that he could barely open one of his eyes, that the tiniest touch to his face made him hiss. He felt butterfly adhesives on his forehead and a bump from hitting that tree. His leg felt weak and raw, but that was to be expected. The rest of him were covered in bruises. What was underneath the bandage though, he hadn’t yet looked, but the dressing was always red at the center.

And he had dreams. Some were vivid scenes that were almost logical but, upon waking and common sense was applied, were completely strange—Farah and Ben sprouting fairy wings, Bloom being a sassy five-year-old student in Alfea, Rosalind revealing that the reason she snuck Bloom out the Otherworld was because she was a redhead, Sky going full 90’s emo with black hair and eyeliner. But mostly, he had nightmares. Images and sights mingled together, of a village burning and then Alfea burning, of the crisp bodies on the ground and the burned ones transformed back to their human forms, of him chasing the creatures and then being chased by them. There were faces, conversation with people he knew were long dead and those that died only recently, of Marco and Noura and his squad and so many he called friends, of his father with his head disfigured from the shot that killed him. A shot that Saul had no choice but to take when he was a boy. There was the symmetry of him being stabbed in the gut, the same wound he gave Andreas when he left him for dead on that hill.

At times, he would rouse from these dreams, sweating all over, and it would take him forever to realize that he was no longer in the nightmare. At least twice, he awoke during the day and the woman was there by his side, shushing him and speaking words of comfort he couldn’t comprehend. It didn’t matter. He held on to the sound of her voice to tether him to the real, yet the time it took him to understand that he wasn’t being chased anymore or being mutilated, killing loved ones, or watching them die, he was already drifting back, moving away from consciousness, and no matter how hard he pleaded for her to not let him go back there, he was gone again and starting another cycle of nightmares.

“Let it run free,” was what he thought he heard her say, “the nightmare… let it…”

There was one recurring dream though, not quite a nightmare but not a comforting dream either, of a woman in a loose black dress, blonde hair, tattoos and scars on her arm, whom he’d glimpse outside his window, her face haunting, forbidding, but also intoxicating. She was always out there and he was always in here. She would haunt the grounds, stalking the cabin, encircling it, scratching the walls, tapping windows, and each time he saw her, she was grinning as he remained immobile on the bed unable to do anything.

He awoke once—or thought he awoke—and he was alone. He could feel her out there, again, could almost hear the swishing of her legs against the grass. Only, she wasn’t outside for there she was, stepping into his view, not wearing the same black outfit but simply wrapped in a towel, her long hair dripping where she walked. She didn’t glance at him once but went straight to one side of the room where a cabinet was.

This wasn’t real. He was dreaming, imagining her as though he wasn’t in the room. And, sure enough, when she had fished out what she intended to wear (another ensemble of black or dark gray) she casually removed the towel and draped it on a chair nearby. Her skin glistened against the light, her upper half covered in that blonde mane, the other half… He tried to look away. Tried. But… it was the nightmares, the wound that almost killed him, or some other excuse he probably could give—he was a man? This was unsolicited? He was weak and she was beautiful. Anyway, this wasn’t real. Must be. She was there, exposed, her body wet and lithe and inviting, her motions graceful and slow. There was a flash of narrow calves, of long legs and toned muscles, of a well-shaped ass, but before he could fully appreciate, she pulled the dress over her head and her body was fully covered again.

He groaned and she spun around. They caught each other’s eyes, him trying to ignore what he had just seen and feeling the need to apologize, but all she did was squint at him. There was no mortification, no sudden shyness or indignation, just that squint as though she was merely assessing what he was thinking. He did his best to empty his mind even though he knew that the image of her naked was now engraved in there.

Then she smiled. An amused one.

“You’re not really awake, are you?”

He meant to agree but when he opened his mouth, only a moan came out. 

She pulled her long hair from inside the dress, studying him some more with those playful eyes. When she made his way to him, he noticed that her feet remained bear. But even with shoes, he was sure she wouldn’t have made a sound, her movement so deliberate yet quick and effortless. It was a masterclass in stealth or she was in a profession that primed every muscle in her body to work whenever she moved. For some reason, he thought dancer.

She sat on the bed and checked his temperature with the back of her hand. She frowned and said something he again didn’t hear. He tried a nod to keep her talking. Maybe he could say something that would make her smile again, but already he could feel his eyes closing. He forced them open.

She pulled down the blanket covering him and he saw that he didn’t have a shirt on. White bandage covered half his abdomen, most of it maroon with dried blood. She muttered something sharp, then went ahead and opened the drawer from the nightstand, pulling out white stuff he couldn’t glimmer. He realized she was changing his bandage, but again he was drifting. In an effort to stay awake, he clutched her hand.

The act didn’t seem to surprise her. She merely looked at him and squeezed his hand as though to reassure him. She brushed his hair as her mouth moved, and her voice floated to his ears without him really understanding, not until she said, “Am I real this time?”

Had he been saying that?

But was she?

She lifted his hand to her lips, then cradled it against her cheek. “Does this feel real?”

Gods, he hoped it was. But the room was already dimming, taking on different shapes and seeming faraway. It probably wasn’t real. Why would she do that anyway? And why now place his hand down neatly on her lap as though it belonged there? Why was she pulling a needle from a drawer and pricking her own finger with it?

The world around him was shifting. None of it was real. He sunk deeper into his pillow as he watched blood blossom from her finger. Then she was pulling down his jaw, opening his mouth the tiniest bit and letting the blood drop.

He squirmed away but her hand tightened around his jaw and she started speaking soothing words, even as he tasted iron. He tried to spit it out, but she covered his mouth, talking in the same gentle tone. Then her voice faded, her hand disappeared and the foul taste vanished. His weak attempts to pull her off ended and he was alone on the bed again, but she was outside the cabin, grinning as she prowled, tapped, scratched.

///

Maja stood by the window, looking outside wondering how best to watch over her patient while also getting supplies from town which would take her hours.

 _Should be fine_ , she thought. She left him that first day to get all this medical stuff and he was still alive when she got back. She checked the IV, seeing that it was still working properly, then turned to the man sleeping on her bed, invading her home.

The sword he brought with him, currently residing next to a broom in her cupboard, screamed soldier. Solarian. Not only that, but the scars on his body attested to a life of violence. His hands were heavily calloused and it was clear he kept an active lifestyle. He was almost certainly a soldier, only his clothes told her otherwise. Of course, it could be argued that a soldier had every right to wear casual clothes from time to time, but it didn’t seem that way. Or maybe she was just rationalizing her actions. She shouldn’t have helped him. Logic dictated that, if she wanted to keep everything the way it was, she should have let him die out there. Then again, logic also told her that if she did that, she will never be able to live with herself. And what was she to do if he did, just let him rot there in front of her property and wait until the bears dragged his lifeless corpse away?

She wondered what he actually looked like because, at the moment, with that nasty bruise and those cuts on his face, he was nothing but a battered man who has had it rougher than most. Their meeting was probably the worst day of his life. Had to be. But that jawline looked promising, and those cheekbones. Aside from injuries inflicted on him by fists and knives and one formidable tree, his skin appeared flawless though pale. She was almost sure that his eyes were stunning, that was, she can’t wait until the swelling had fully gone down (they had a little) and he could open both eyes properly.

“I’m just saying,” she said to his sleeping form, “you’re definitely a Solarian soldier and I’m about to lose this home. There’s no way you’re worth it, so the least you could do is be an eye candy. Not just cute, you better be god-level hot.”

Not that it mattered. She had hoped that after the hard part, which was pretty hard given his injuries, he’d start improving. She managed to keep him alive but maybe he won’t make it after all. He still had a fever, a sure sign of infection; still weak, hallucinating most times, and had never been fully awake. Three days of this. Maybe it was time for a doctor.

No, one more day. If nothing changes, then she’d bring in a doctor tomorrow. She looked at the woods, at that tree her patient banged his head on marking the edge of her property. The house had been such a safe place, unknown to anyone, and it would have remained that way if not for this man. But she couldn’t expect to stay here forever. One day, she’d be old and weak, incapable of taking care of herself, and then what?

And then she’d die. But at least they didn’t get to her.

Her patient began to moan, his head lolling left to right, and she had to wonder if this was another nightmare. Then he opened his eyes, scanned the room in one sweep and then closed them again.

“She’s out there,” he murmured.

Ah, the proverbial stalker who menaced the cabin. Or was it a female bear? Or, more likely, he actually had a stalker and she was the one who gave him that nasty wound.

“No way she could have done that to you with that sword,” she said, not that he heard. Already, he stopped moving and was again snoring softly. “Alright,” she straightened up, making up her mind. “I’m gonna leave for just a few hours, okay? Just need some stuff to keep you alive. Might as well restock while I’m down there. You want anything, Pat?”

Pat didn’t seem to want anything.

“You sure? It’s gonna be another two weeks before I go down there.”

Pat just kept on snoring.

“Ice cream? Afraid it’ll just melt, buddy. How about crisps?” She paused. “No? What about chocolates? You like chocolates, Pat?”

Pat’s eyelids fluttered, his pupils moving rapidly underneath, dreaming.

“Chocolates then.”

///

Not that it was easy to get these kinds of supplies. Most of them, Maja could buy from any drugstore, but the IV bags, the lines, the vials of antibiotics, she was lucky to know someone who would sell them to her and it was the same doctor she planned to bring in tomorrow. The first time round, she needed to get through an unusual amount of flirting, piled on top of genuine concern on his part and how he should probably go there himself instead of letting her do it—did she even know how to find veins? Yes, doctor, she did—before she could get them. Only her fervent insistence that the patient wasn’t all that bad, couple with a promise to have coffee with him one of these days, made him back off.

That she was now asking for more of the same supplies indicated she may not have been completely honest before. But either he didn’t care that much, possible since he kept pivoting back to the coffee she owed him, or the exhaustion and worry she had been nursing for the past few days was perfectly hidden so that he went on believing everything she said. There was nothing serious here. Just a patient that still had a bit of fever. He wasn’t vomiting or anything. His heart rate’s perfectly normal, wasn’t at all in a continuous loop of nightmares and hallucinations, and most definitely was awake this whole time.

She kept a watchful eye on her hike back, briefly considering that maybe the doctor only appeared complacent because he meant to follow her to her lair. But she decided that was ridiculous. Still, she didn’t live in isolation for sixteen years without being vigilant, so she took the usual precautions and only upon reaching home did she relax.

Once inside, she rummaged in her bag until she found a chocolate bar and started eating it. She was sitting on the sofa, which was right in front of the bed and her patient.

Only, the bed was empty.

And her patient was instead standing to the side, right next to the bathroom door, blinking at her.

The chocolate bar dropped from her hand.

“Pat!” she said.

He didn’t move, holding his right side, his other hand still on the doorknob. He was shirtless, bruises on his torso very visible, his posture atrocious, which meant he really shouldn’t be up let alone standing there like an idiot.

His voice rough, he said, “Pat?”

“You. You’re Pat. Why are you up?”

She shot out of the sofa and went to him, putting one of his arms around her shoulder and guiding him back to bed.

“I needed to pee.” He grunted when he was again settled back in bed, lying down.

Of course, he needed to pee. But did he also need to pull out his IV?

Taking the three steps to get to the kitchen, Maja fumbled for a glass and filled it up with water, then she was by his side again. She didn’t need to ask if he was thirsty since he was already reaching for it while she held his head up so he could drink, but he still spluttered water all over his chin. He halved the glass in three seconds, paused to breathed, then went on drinking.

When he had emptied the glass, she stopped and looked at him, entertaining the idea that he was sleepwalking, but he seemed alert. She tested his eyes, asking him to follow her finger as she moved it in front of him. They seemed to be working just fine. Next, she asked him to squeeze her hands and he did. 

“Do you know where you are right now?”

“Your house?”

“What’s your name?”

“Name?”

She furrowed her brow. “Yes, name.”

“Didn’t you say Pat?”

“You don’t know your name?”

“I know my name.”

“What is it?”

He paused a second, looking away before saying, “Connor.”

“Connor,” she repeated. Either he was unable to communicate properly or that wasn’t his name. She was sure it was the latter. “Are you a Solarian soldier?”

“What? No.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. Then again, that didn’t explain the sword.

While thinking what she should do next, he asked, “What’s _your_ name?”

“Oh!” she said. “Sorry. It’s Maja.”

He nodded and she realized he was smiling. There was also a look on his face that made her think that maybe he wasn’t fully awake despite the tests he just passed. She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re really real,” he said in an almost astonished way.

“Ah, that.”

“By any chance, do you also skulk around outside and grin from the windows?”

He was more okay than she thought because that was a lot of words for someone who had been in and out of it for the last three days. Also, skulk around? So, the ‘she’ who was stalking him was _her_? She almost laughed.

“I tend to the gardens and clean outside. I don’t remember grinning stupidly from the windows.”

“I didn’t say it was stupid.”

“Sounded like it.”

He was looking at her hands, which lay relaxed atop her lap. It looked like he wanted to ask something else, but maybe he thought it was stupid or just plain absurd that he didn’t. Suddenly all out of words, he lifted his eyes to her then down again to her hands as though silently asking her to show them. But she couldn’t be certain.

“What?” 

“Can I see your hands?” he finally asked. He knew it was stupid, especially since virtually everything he had seen in the last few days—how many days has it been?—were all not to be trusted. They were fantastical and most times darkly grotesque for him to believe that any of it was real. But there was a nagging in his head that just wouldn’t let it go.

She frowned at him, which was understandable. Her hands were right there, visibly weaponless. What was it for? Still, she raised them up, first with the palms facing him then turning them the other way.

What did a pricked finger look after the pricking anyway? Without the blooming blood, would a needle point have made any lingering sign that it had punctured her skin? Hands heal fast. Palms almost never scar. What did he hope to see?

She laid down her hands again, still with the frown on her face. At least, she was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that this and the first chapter are such cliffhangers and I am trying to write faster. I've just not been feeling well lately and pretty frustrated with the other story I'm writing. But will post the third chapter soon. Hopefully it doesn't take five days this time.  
> On the names, before I settled on "Connor", I actually considered using "Thomas" as Saul's pseudonym, as a nod to Thomas Barrow, but the name just conjured the Thomas Barrow character too much for me (anyone who watched Downton Abbey would know that Thomas is a clean-shaven, pomade-haired snob, far from the rugged Saul Silva). So I went with "Connor", as in Liam Connor from Coronation Street (I've never seen the show actually, but enjoyed a bunch of RJC's clips from YouTube).  
> And yes, "Pat" is short for Patient.


	3. Meals

After the mammoth effort Saul made in getting out of bed just so he can pee in the bathroom, he slept the rest of the day away but not before the woman, Maja, reinserted his IV and made him eat soup. There was little conversation to be had but he remembered being handed a shirt, the same one he wore before, patched up on the part where he got himself stabbed, its right sleeve a completely different color (black, of course) and fabric. She helped him put it on which, despite the needed proximity for her to do that, wasn’t anywhere near erotic because he felt more like a helpless toddler than a stud.

When he again woke up, it was morning. It was a small cabin and the banging around the kitchen carried easily to the bed, but it was the smell of coffee as well as the sizzling of eggs and sausages on a frying pan that roused him. His mouth watered as though it had been such a long time since he last had breakfast. Ages. But once the remnants of sleep left him, the reality of his physical situation returned. The short of it was, he felt dead or nearly dead that he almost wished he didn’t wake up. It was as though he was at least ten times heavier than before, but also, he felt skinny that the bed might as well swallow him up. His head throbbed and his joints felt funny, especially his left knee. And his abdomen, the whole of it not just the right side, was too tender and battered.

What a baby. He was sure he could get up if he wanted to. He did it yesterday; but he took a second to prepare himself.

It was strange to finally see the cabin properly. Even though he was already aware that it was small, he didn’t think it was this small, only slightly bigger than a regular-sized hotel room cramped with a kitchen. Everything was within a few steps. Bed and sofa on one side, kitchen/dining room and study on the other. Beside the sofa was a door that led to the bathroom, a small fireplace was between sofa and study, and the door leading outside between study and kitchen. Yet she managed to cram every available wall space with shelves, hanging and standing, all brimming with books.

He pushed himself up, grunted just a little and proved that he was right, he could get up. Maja had her back to him, humming as she cooked, wearing another dark gray shapeless dress that looked more like an oversized t-shirt but with short sleeves. Her hair was again unbound, swaying as she bobbed her head, her feet bare. She spun on her heels, frying pan in hand, and placed the contents on a plate atop the table, noticing him almost immediately.

“Oh hey,” she said, smiling as she placed the pan back on the stove. “How are we feeling today?”

He thought about how his head felt too heavy for his neck and how he wished he didn’t have an abdomen anymore and said, “Wonderful.”

“What kind of soup do you want? I have mushroom, tomato, chicken…”

“Those are my options?” He eyed the table, other items on the menu there for him to see.

“Pumpkin?” she proposed before clarifying, “You haven’t eaten anything solid for three days. It might be tricky.” 

“How about pancakes?”

He had the pumpkin soup, with bread, but at least he got the coffee. And he had it in bed even though he insisted he can make it to the ‘dining table’. Meanwhile, she ate her eggs and sausages next to him, using the nightstand as a table and letting the smell waft to his nose as though testing his resistance. He must have eyed her meal too many times that she relented and said, “Oh, you can have the eggs,” so that he took a slice directly from her plate.

He took the chance to see more of the tattoos and the scars on her arm. The tattoos were a sprawling design of the moon, clouds, and stars of different sizes, their growing rays beaming down to her elbow while the clouds provided a coiling background on her entire upper arm. The scars, he now realized, weren’t merely lines; they went around her forearm in circles like bracelets, slightly bulging white. It wasn’t pencil thin. Rather, they were each around a quarter-inch thick. She saw him looking and probably waited for him to ask, but he didn’t. Instead, he tried to figure out why his fevered brain would think that this woman who had nursed him back to life, watching over him for days on end, whose face was something close to celestial, would then haunt his dreams in the darkest ways possible. Why couldn’t he have more of her being naked? That seemed like a normal thing to dream about.

But then, even as he thought this, some part of him wondered if he should so easily assume that none of it was real. Maybe some of it was just distorted but were real enough, maybe it was a pill that she made him swallow, not the drop of blood from her finger. Maybe she smiled once at him from the window and he kept that on repeat. And was it too far-fetched that she should be affectionate to him, kissing his hand tenderly just because she thought he wouldn’t remember?

“I just can’t get over it,” Maja said, and he realized she had been scrutinizing him.

“What?”

“How quickly you’re getting better. I mean,” she moved closer to him to put a hand on his forehead. “Even your fever’s gone down.” Then she looked at his face. They weren't exactly close, at least a foot apart, but her gaze was steady, penetrating, and he couldn’t help but stare. “Your right eye is almost completely open.”

He had a glimpse of himself yesterday when he went to the bathroom. The sight was upsetting to say the least, a lot worse than it should have been since his main injury was not to the face. Then again, his torso looked exactly the way it felt.

“That tree came out of nowhere,” he felt lame just saying it.

“I don’t blame you. It’s just this tiny sixty-foot thing, easily missed.” She shrugged while chewing, her eyes playful. It was the same look he saw in his dream. Now, how could he know that look?

“Why didn’t you take me to a doctor?” The moment this escaped his mouth, he regretted it. He was grateful that she didn’t bring him to a doctor or go to a clinic, so he shouldn’t have asked. Doing so just opened himself to being questioned in turn and he didn’t want to answer any of them.

She tilted her head as she chewed and swallowed. Her eyes didn’t betray anything when she said, “I was a healer, before this,” she indicated the cabin with a fork.

“Before this?”

“Living in the _wild_ ,” she said cheerfully.

“And what was before?” he really should shut himself up now.

“Normal life. Nosy neighbors. Loud streets. Loud relatives.”

That was the most generic answer. He had ever heard. His entire life.

Then she asked, “what about you, _Connor_? What did you do to get yourself stabbed in the gut like that?”

There it was. He ran through the half-truths he could tell her, then proceeded to the whole lies, and still he couldn’t come up with a plausible reason that would have him in the middle of nowhere, running for his life. So, he bought time by sipping his soup as slowly and noisily as he could. When he was done, it was to see her smirking at him, his tactics easily seen through.

He said the first thing he could think of then. “Okay, it was an angry husband.”

Her eyes beamed, amused. “Uh-huh. And how did you end up here?”

“Didn’t mean to end up here. Went in the woods to run away. Got lost in the process.”

“What happened to this husband? Is he still alive?”

“Of course, he is.”

“Then how come you have his sword?”

“I didn’t say he was uninjured.”

She was shaking her head, not laughing out loud but finding the whole thing hilarious all the same. “You bested a Solarian soldier. That’s so awesome.”

“I _am_ awesome.”

“And were you aware that this woman had a husband?”

“No.”

“Good answer,” she gave that an approving nod. “I suppose she just couldn’t resist.”

“I have my ways.”

“You must be a hottie.”

At this point, he gave up and started laughing, which immediately had him crying ‘ow!’, holding his right side. She joined in laughing before taking the soup from his hand and leaning him back on the headboard to check his wound. For the first time since this all started, the bandage had not a drop of red on it, stitches intact. Even the black and blue bruises around it had subsided to a tamer purple with some parts that were already green or yellow. Perhaps by instinct, she very lightly ran her fingers on the bruises.

His stomach contracted from the touch, earning another groan from him.

She removed her hand, guilt on her face as she hissed for him. “Sorry!”

He cleared her throat. “It’s fine,” he said because he was more annoyed at himself for reacting that way. He wasn’t ticklish and it was barely a touch, and yet he suddenly couldn’t breathe.

///

His quota for staying awake ranged anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours. But at least when he was up, he was fully conscious and wasn’t in a haze of dreams and nightmares. He was starting to eat solid foods but no meat yet, restricted to rice and vegetables. He was also given strict instructions not to pull out his IV whenever he went to the bathroom, and to keep himself glued to the bed the rest of the time. But since she apparently had a routine that involved spending minutes outside (which he guessed used to be hours but which she had shortened because of his presence), he had a few unwatched episodes where he stretched his legs and walked around to browse the many books that decorated the walls.

They were mostly about travel, countries and realms described in the most glamorous ways. There were also studies on every available subject ranging from physical and mental to social and political. There were fictional books as well, which was mostly of the horror variety—he imagined living alone in the middle of the woods and reading a horror book at night, wondering if it was some kind of immersion therapy—and some classical books from different ages and regions, even some from the first world.

Her kitchen seemed to be the place that boasted her solo lifestyle the most. Her cabinet showed only one wine glass, one coffee mug, and one drinking glass. There were four pieces of each type of cutlery but that might be because four was the minimum number she could buy. The number of plates and bowls were also at minimum. This wasn’t a place where guests came over. There were no pictures hanging or sitting on tables, no paintings or small plants anywhere. Other than this, he still didn’t know what to make of her.

He opened her fridge and half expected it to be devoid of anything indulgent, like butter or beer. But there they were. He also found a cabinet full of different types of wine. Well then, all he needed to do now was figure out how he could get another wineglass and they could begin to get cozy. He examined each one until he got to the back where there seemed to be an ancient looking bottle.

It was red wine, nineteen years old, never opened. He wondered how long ago this was bought and what she was saving it for. He had never heard of the maker—not that he was a connoisseur—but it didn’t seem to be anything special.

Just then, he was distracted by movement from out the window. Maja was on the other side, tending to her garden, so this wasn’t her. It was easy to spot it because, unlike most creatures of the forest, this one wore colors that didn’t blend well—a white and blue shirt paired with gray pants, carrying a black hiking backpack. It was a woman and, just a few feet behind her was a man, the same sized bag on his back. They walked in silence, their pace consistent. They weren’t some lost hikers. In a few seconds, they will surely see the cabin.

Oddly enough, they came to only about ten feet of the property, close enough for Saul to see their faces. He realized they were actually talking by the way the woman smiled and occasionally turned around to answer whatever it was the other asked. Then they’d both laugh and continue on, walking in the same pace, not at all distracted by the appearance of a cabin in their midst. It was in direct line of sight to them. They were coming straight to it, so they couldn't have missed it. But for some reason, they made no reactions; they didn’t stop and point, wondering how such a house came to be in the middle of nowhere. There was no break in their walk, no surprise in their eyes; they simply turned right and moved on.

He uttered a small “huh,” to himself, still holding the bottle in his hand.

“What did I say?” a voice yelled from behind him.

He swiveled his head around, finding Maja out the opposite window, her hands on her waist, glaring at him. He put the bottle back where he found it. Then she was making her way back inside while he lumbered toward the bed, his IV line hanging on a rack rolling with him, not hurrying at all because it wasn’t like he could make her unsee him standing around, rummaging through her stuff. 

“I told you bedrest,” she said the moment she got in.

“Bedrests are for ladies with delicate pregnancies.” He sat on the bed, not making a move to lie on it.

“Then consider yourself pregnant.” She helped him on the bed, carrying his legs and he tried his best not to roll his eyes mainly because it hurt.

Under his breath, he murmured, “Pregnant. You haven’t even taken me out to dinner yet.”

“What’s that?”

But there was a crinkle in her eye that matched his despite the reprimand in her voice, her mouth curving upward but which she suppressed. He smiled as much as the cuts on his face would allow and said, “Maja, it’s been two days, when will I eat a proper meal?” 

She seemed to consider this then said, “Okay, later at dinner.” 

He didn’t know why this should excite him so much, but he was suddenly giddy as though he had just won a victory. He knew he was getting better, and this seemed to be solid evidence of that. Or maybe he just had a picture of them eating at the table (highly doubtful given her mothering) and drinking wine on the sofa (one of them using a drinking glass instead of a wine glass), the fire going in the fireplace. Either way, he must have stared at her longer than he should have because she turned her face away but not before he saw the blush rising from her neck to her cheeks.

///

Of course, he slept through dinner. Not that Maja made a sumptuous meal or chose a specialty. It wasn’t like she bit her nails trying to think what food to prepare and then made sure that she didn’t overcook the chicken or the asparagus, or that there wasn’t too much lemon or garlic or butter even though she knew that it was almost impossible to have too much butter. Not that she worried about oversalting the thing and might as well throw it out because it was inedible, or imagined him tasting it and then politely saying that it was good while trying to figure out how he could vomit discreetly.

The main overhead lights were off because it would have been too bright for him but she kept the kitchen light on. That and the little fire in the fireplace provided illumination enough for her as she covered his dinner with a plate and set it on the nightstand just in case he awoke in the next few hours. Around ten, when she was washing the dishes, he did. She took one glance at him, slowly sitting up in bed, wetting his lips as though already hungry, and went back to her task so that he wouldn’t see the dagger stare she was throwing him. Sure, she understood that it wasn’t his fault for missing dinner, he’d probably be bummed about it too once he realized it, but that didn’t mean that she can stop herself from being disappointed.

From her periphery, she saw him swing his legs over the bed and sit up, rubbing his eyes. “Did I miss it?”

“Miss what?”

Letting her single plate dry on the rack along with the pan on which she cooked dinner, she turned around while toweling her hands. He glanced at the plate-covered dish on the nightstand but didn’t make an effort to see underneath. Instead, he raised his head to her, his eyebrows drawn together as though working out a problem.

Then he asked, “Can I have some chocolate?”

“What?”

“I just have the most unusual craving.”

She looked at the meal she had prepared, still untouched, not realizing that her mouth hung open. If she shoved a stupid chocolate bar down his throat, would that be considered abuse?

She went to the fridge, on top of which was a small basket of goodies, including the chocolate bars she bought two days ago. He was yawning when she plopped one on the bed next to him, then she went straight to the sofa and her book. She could feel him watching her but ignored it, letting him enjoy his chocolate, the bastard.

The sofa had been her bed for almost a week now. She went underneath the blanket and plumped the pillow behind her back, stretching her legs on the length of the sofa before she took her book and began reading. Yet she couldn’t concentrate, occasionally glancing at him. He took about two bites of the chocolate, savoring the taste, before he finally lifted the cover of the dinner she had prepared. That was when he decided that the best thing to do was carry the food to the sofa so that he could eat it next to her. She would have stopped him since he shouldn’t be walking around, but it was obvious he was capable and she didn’t feel like stopping him.

Because she wasn’t at all inclined to move, he said, “May I sit?”

She begrudgingly curled her legs underneath her to give him room, and went back to reading, purposefully covering her face with the book so that she wouldn’t have to see his reaction when he ate it.

“This is really good,” he said.

The book immediately came down to her lap and she straightened up, watching him devour the chicken and the asparagus and take another bite when he wasn’t yet finished with the first one.

“Is it, really?” gods, that sounded so needy.

“Yeah!” he said, his mouth full. “This is…” he chewed some more, looking at the plate, “I’d pay for this.”

“It’s not too salty? Too garlicky?”

“No, it’s fantastic!” He set the plate on his lap, eating so enthusiastically he might just finish it in record time. “Or, you know, I haven’t had a full meal for a few days, so anything I eat is bound to be good.”

“Except this isn’t just good. This is spectacular. This is high-end dining my friend.”

“Tooting your own horn a little too much there.”

“I live in the woods, Connor, who else is gonna toot it for me?”

He grinned, laughing softly as he continued gorging himself. She could tell that he meant to say something else, maybe along the lines of tooting and horns, but instead he asked what she was reading and she showed him. It was a book about sleeping. She told him that sleep did not equate to unconsciousness and was not at all a passive state like everyone relegated it to. 

“Does it say anything about nightmares?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “My father told me that nightmares were a way for us to relive a danger we experienced so that we can figure out how to react to it the next time it happens.”

He had already finished more than half his meal as he gave this some thought. “But what if it’s not something that can happen again? Or should happen again? Like a car accident.”

She shrugged. “You let the nightmare go on until you figure out how to take over it.”

“Take over it?”

She thought about the many nightmares she had through the years, the gruesome deaths she had witnessed and how she had failed everyone she knew. There was no winning in it, nothing to stop her from reliving it. And in the end, there was no one there but her nightmares and the woods.

“If you have nightmares often enough, hounding you every night, each time new to you but not really, you eventually figure out how to live with it and then take over.”

She could see that he was thinking what best to say to this little observation, maybe he knew that she spoke from experience, maybe not, but if he prodded, if he asked a single question on what nightmares plagued her, then she would prod back and he wasn’t prepared for that. So instead, his eyes fell again on the tattoos and scars on her arm. The tattoos were easy enough to figure out. It was always the scars that people were baffled by.

“What do you think they are?” she said.

“Jewelry?”

She scoffed. “Ha! Try again.”

“Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Most people think they’re ladders.”

“Are they?”

“No.”

He waited for her to say more, letting the silence reign to intimidate her into speaking. Except, she was done speaking and he waited for nothing. Beside him, the flames in the fireplace crackled; the light by the kitchen flickered once but stayed on; and the crickets made a loud accompaniment to their staring contest which neither one of them were willing to back away from. Except her knuckles were turning white as she gripped the book in her hands, sure that she was making indents on its cover. His five o’clock shadow had thickened a little since she found him, and his lips were gaining color. The swelling on his face was gone and the bruises had almost disappeared. In this light, there seemed to be just a dark color underneath his right eye, nothing more. She could now say that, yes, his eyes were most definitely stunning—kind when he was smiling, deep-set and intense when he frowned, which was what he was doing right now. 

So, she was first to blink, swiveling her eyes toward the kitchen light as though to await if it will flicker once more. This seemed to prompt him back to finishing his dinner. He took a bite, swallowed, gazed again at her scars and said, “Is it okay if I…?” he gestured to them. “Can I touch it?”

This was perfectly normal. Most kids, after staring at them long enough, would come bounding to her and ask this very same request. Adults were more reserved, but some did occasionally ask after a couple of conversations with her. She should have expected that he eventually would, and yet she hesitated before lifting her arm for his inspection.

He set his almost empty plate down on the floor as he first took her wrist. His hold was steady, firm, then, with his other hand, the pads of his calloused fingers skimmed the very surface of her skin, running it slowly from the crook of her arm to the first circle, then the second, feeling the swell of the scars and the smoothness of the gaps in between. Her throat bobbed up and down as she swallowed and she could feel her breath deepening, wishing to anyone that would listen that she doesn’t get goosebumps. His fingers curled as he went through the third and the fourth, until she felt his nails trace lines through her arm and he reached the eighth, the last one, inches from her wrist. His other hand also moved, sliding down her pulse until he was holding her hand. And yet, he wasn’t done because it was only the first pass. His fingers stayed where it rested on the last two circles, thumbing it slowly, back and forth, back and forth, until she thought she couldn’t take it anymore and she was gonna have to withdraw her arm.

Thankfully, he let go. 

She cleared her throat and looked down on her arm, scorched and tingling, hoping that the light was bad enough so he wouldn’t see how red her face had gone. She shouldn’t have let him touch the scars. He was still a patient and she was sure that being mauled by his physician was the farthest thing from his mind. There were so many things to consider, most of all, the irony of the universe granting her a wish she wasn’t at all serious in asking. _Universe, when I said god-level, that was an exaggeration, don’t you get it? It’s called hyperbole._

“Maja,” he said.

She finally lifted her head, “They’re life lines.” His lips parted, about to speak, but she beat him to it. “Are you done with that plate? I’ll go wash it for you.”

There was still about a spoonful left, but she took it anyway and he didn’t protest as she headed back to the kitchen. Life lines. Why did she tell him? For the same reason she wanted him to guess. She wanted someone to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a medical professional and this is fanfiction, so anyone who are, let me have this one. 😁  
> I have no excuse for posting this chapter so late this time, just found it hard to write. I wanted to keep each chapter at a 3,000+ wordcount range but, I don't know, I couldn't see where else to shorten or cut (and I've cut a lot already).  
> Anyway, we're two chapters away from the half-point, if everything goes as planned--I'm a little unsure how long this story is gonna be, either it will be a lot shorter or a lot longer, but I'm still targeting 10 chapters. Chapter 4 might reveal everything already or it might spill over to chapter 5 (given how my writing tend to go over my intended wordcount it might just spill over, fair warning). Then that's part 1.  
> Edit: forgot to mention, thanks to Anreeixcobra for suggesting the chocolate thing. 😃


	4. Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maja grows distant after unintentionally revealing the nature of her scars. Saul is getting better and has to face the fact that he'll have to leave soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the most serious chapter so far and also, this is the most nervous I am about posting a chapter. Just wanted to preface your reading with this.

Saul stood in front of the tree outside the cabin, the one that hit him. It was possible that it was in fact the other way around, but given that he was losing blood and hallucinating at the time, it was always gonna be the tree’s fault and no one will convince him otherwise. He tilted his head to the side, eyeing its trunk. It wasn’t so tall as to be a giant but not so small for him to miss it.

Maja came around and stood next to him, also staring at the tree. “Pin oak,” she nodded at it. “Here before I came.”

He looked at her a second, surprised that she would volunteer talking to him when she had been spending more and more of her time in the shed. Apparently, she weaves and then sells them when she goes to the town every two weeks. Ever since that night with the dinner and the scars, she grew distant, which was amazing given that they were under the same roof and neither could simply up and leave. He suspected she still hadn’t gotten back to her old routine, needing to check in on him and his general health, but each interaction was off, as though she actively tried not to laugh at his attempts to be funny and curbed the urge to give a witty response. Worse, the checkups were becoming less and less necessary. He wasn’t on the IV anymore and his bedrest restriction had been lifted. He was getting better, no denying it now, which was good news really and he should be rejoicing.

“I must have been heading this way,” he pointed to the side of the tree, “and just pivoted suddenly to this.”

“Yeah, that must be it.” She walked to the left and gestured to the ground. “I found you lying there.”

He looked to where she gestured and then at the cabin behind him, a few feet from the tree. He didn’t see that either, which didn’t make sense. Either the tree was blocking his view (it wasn’t) or the cabin should have been visible to him. It was also entirely possible that he was misremembering this or that his vision was failing him at the time that it happened. After all, he kept hearing a stream when there wasn’t one, so it wasn’t too extreme to think that he wasn’t seeing things the way it should be.

But there were those two hikers the other day, coming straight at the cabin without once seeing it either…

Maybe it was just the angle. Coming from there, when you expected to see nothing but nature, maybe it was impossible to spot a cabin, one with solar panels on its roof, a flourishing vegetable garden beside it, and a shed behind.

Maja walked back to his side, looking much the same as the first time he saw her, blonde hair cascading down her shoulders, eyes unwavering and hypnotic. She wore a long dark blue dress today, reaching to her ankles, cinched at the waist. He realized it wasn’t really the same way. She wasn’t tangible then, just an echo of a fairy tale from his fevered brain. Here, she was flesh and blood, vividly human but a vision all the same. He turned away and looked again at the tree, unable to endure another of her politely reserved smiles when she caught him staring.

“How far away is this from town?” he asked.

“Not far. Three hours, depends how fast you walk.”

He realized right away that this was the wrong question to ask because it led to the very thing he had been trying not to think about for days now and the reason why he was concentrating so hard on the tree. Except, she seemed to take to the same train of thought.

“There’s a path over there,” she pointed to their right, beyond a clump of trees where he saw those hikers walking that day. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you.”

“Can’t wait to get rid of me, huh?”

He expected her to laugh it off or happily agree, tease him about being a burden, but instead she blanched. “No, not at all. You can stay as long as you need.”

As-long-as-he-need expired the moment he woke up. He had no reason to stay. He could take that path right that moment and leave this cabin forever.

“What if I don’t wanna leave?”

“You’re gonna.”

This sounded like banter but when he looked at her face, it was devoid of humor. Still, not knowing when to give up, he said, “Will you miss me when I leave?”

She gave that polite smile that made him clench his teeth. It was so marginally different to the ones before. “Of course, Connor.”

///

Evenings in the forest had a different kind of silence from what it was during the day. At night, everything was heightened and solemn, even if it wasn’t quiet at all. There was the sound of crickets, the occasional owl hooting, some rushing animal disturbing the ground. Inside, there was the clock ticking on the wall, wood crackling in the fireplace, and their forks clinking against their plates as they ate dinner. Now that he could eat at her coffee/dining table, he might as well eat it outside. She seemed to resist any attempt at genuine conversation. Not that she was being monosyllabic in her responses. In fact, she managed to establish an exchange, answering and asking questions in turn, but it was clinical, like speaking with a clerk about opening a bank account. None of the easy dialogue they had before, lacking any teasing or sincerity, any personal reflections gone, and personal questions were expertly deflected.

Tonight, she talked again about the importance of sleep from her book, how there were likely more accidents caused by sleep-deprivation than was known because there wasn’t a definitive way to identify it, unlike drunk-driving. Then a lull came and they were back to the clinking of their forks against their plates.

“Time stands still in this place, doesn’t it?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The view stays the same. No one bothers you. No one sneaks up on you. Nothing bad happens to you.” He waited for her to comment, maybe defend her lifestyle because he was pretty much saying that it was boring. When she didn’t, he said, “Of course, nothing good happens to you either.”

She only raised an eyebrow but didn’t even pause in her eating.

“Either time is too slow or it’s too fast. I didn’t realize that a week has already gone by, and yet a day takes forever to end.”

“You get used to it,” was all she said.

“Here, I don’t have to think what’s waiting for me outside.”

Again, he waited for any reaction, for her to ask what he thought waited for him. But she merely rolled her pasta into her fork.

“How do you stand it?” he suddenly asked.

“What?”

“Not ask any questions about me.”

That made her stop and he saw a flare in her eyes as though he had gone against an established set of rules that wasn’t made explicit to him.

He went on, “I come here, near death, holding a Solarian sword, and I’ve been here for days, not in a hurry to leave or notify anyone where I am. And you don’t ask a single question.”

“Because when I did, all you could say was that it was an angry husband who wounded you.”

“You only asked that because I asked something first.”

“What do you want me to ask you?”

“Nothing. I just want to know how could you remain so indifferent.”

“I’m not indifferent. I respect your privacy.”

“What if I told you everything?”

“You wouldn’t.”

She was right, of course. But he also knew that she didn’t want him to because then she might be obligated to tell him everything. Without intending to or knowing how far he was willing to go, he said, “I was imprisoned for a few days and then escaped.”

Her reaction was to clank her fork down her half-eaten plate, the glare she threw him a clear indication that he went past whatever line she had drawn, a line that he was sure didn’t exist days before. Then she shook her head as she stood up, carrying the plate to the sink.

“I don’t wanna hear it.”

“It wasn’t one Solarian soldier I bested. It was several.”

“I said I don’t wanna hear it, Connor!”

“My name’s not Connor.”

“I know! And I don’t care!”

“That’s right, you don’t care.” He too stood up and went next to her by the sink. “Here’s another. I was imprisoned for killing a friend years ago—”

“—Connor—”

“—only that friend turned out to be alive and this was his payback—”

“—Connor!”

“I told you, my name isn’t Connor!”

“And mine isn’t Maja!”

He saw her shut her eyes and wish she could take that back, while he was stunned into speechlessness. If lightning had struck then, it would have been appropriate. But it wasn’t raining and there was only more of the dead silence that seemed to encompass the cabin lately. Of all the things… He didn’t know why this should surprise him. He did it to her, after all. 

“What?”

“If you’re done with dinner, I’ll finish up here.”

He knew why. It was because there was so little she told about herself, he didn’t bother to question whether any of what she gave was true, that something so basic as a name could be a lie.

“What’s your name?” That was a stupid question and he only got a pointed glare in response. Changing his approach, he said, “My name i—”

“—I don’t wanna know.”

“No, you’ll know. My name’s S—” but she covered his mouth. Her face changed then, from one that could barely hold her contempt to that of imploring.

“Please, I don’t wanna know. Don’t tell me anything more.” He took her wrist and pulled her hand away. It came off easily, but he didn’t let it go just yet. “People call me Maja. Everyone calls me Maja. They have for years. It’s my name just as much as the old one.”

He knew he should be relieved that at least it wasn’t a complete lie, but he felt no relief at all. Now the name Maja sounded false to him, making everything here an illusion. Once he left, all he would recall was that he didn’t know anything about her, not even her name, and he couldn’t have that.

“Why can’t you tell me?”

She gave an ironic laugh. “Why do you think I’m here in this cabin? Why am I so far removed from everyone else?”

“I know where you live. I know what you do. I know your routine. Why can’t I know your name?”

“You just can’t.”

“It’s just a name.” He knew it wasn’t but he had to know.

“Everything’s in a name,” she said before pulling her hand away and taking a step from him. 

She turned to the table to pick up his plate and place it on the sink too. He watched her move back and forth, putting away the dishes, which seemed to conclude the conversation even though everything was completely hanging in the air. He sighed, feeling something inside him fracture. A better man would know what to say, would find the words to convince her that he could be trusted with something so rudimentary as her name, that it wasn’t her past he wanted to know, it was just her. But he doubted that such a better man would be able to persuade her. Because she took him in, nursed him back to health, all without question or compensation, he thought she was all softness and warmth, even though he could sense from the very beginning that she was something beyond that. The isolation alone should have told him. His dreams told him.

“Take the bed,” he said, because there were no pretenses anymore. He was well enough to leave, which meant he could withstand sleeping in the less comfortable place. “I’ll take the sofa.”

“Connor—”

“Take the bed. And stop calling me Connor.”

///

It was midmorning when he woke up the next day. And even then, he still felt tired. He knew she was the same because he heard her tossing and turning in bed, until some time past midnight when she decided to step out of the cabin and go to the shed. He could just see a shaft of light coming from it through the window until he finally was able to sleep around half past three.

When he sat up on the sofa, he found her sitting by the study, drinking a cup, having had breakfast maybe hours ago. The dark circles under her eyes were heavy as she regarded him while he moved around the kitchen. Because she had the cup, he poured his coffee on a drinking glass and folded some paper towels to keep his fingers from being scalded. There was a plate-covered breakfast on the table, always had been whenever he missed a meal. He took the cover off and had a bite of the already cold toast, feeling her eyes boring on him but which he ignored. It was a bright morning, a new day and he wasn’t eager to continue whatever it was that happened last night. For just a few minutes, he wanted to stay in this little cocoon of peace, put off the idea of leaving, the sudden emptiness and uncertainty that would entail, the thought that he might never see her again.

But it seemed she wasn’t on board with that.

“So,” she said from across the cabin, “what am I supposed to call you now?”

Without looking up, he said, “Honey sounds good, or sweetie, or sugar.”

“Asshole?”

He was sipping his coffee when she said that and it almost went down the wrong pipe. Still, he spluttered and made a small mess on the table while burning his tongue in the process. Without missing a beat, she stood up and went over the kitchen to pick up a paper towel and began wiping the table with it. 

“Asshole sounds about right,” he said, “but ‘baby’ sounds better.”

He had to rethink this though. Do people in their mid-forties still call each other ‘baby’? It’s more likely ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ in an effort to make their infant children catch on. Or was he thinking of the wrong age group? Andreas had a fully grown son after all. He was suddenly aware of how long he had been single and how old he was.

“Dick is a name,” she suggested next.

“It _is_ a name, it’s just not my name.”

She paused almost imperceptibly, which he noticed only because he was watching her every reaction even though he couldn’t read them. Gods, he suddenly wished it was two days ago, when he did nothing and he managed to make her blush. How could that person be the same inscrutable woman before him now?

She finished up, throwing the paper towel away, and then sat opposite him. He still couldn’t guess what mood she was in, whether she was angry (and she did just call him an asshole) or back to the more accessible person from before.

“Were you really imprisoned?” she asked, her tone conversational, a good sign.

“Yes. There’s a castle—”

“—miles away from here,” at this she sounded both impressed and horrified. “How long were you walking with that wound?”

He took a deep breath then shrugged, as though to say these things happen.

She leaned back on her seat, contemplative. Then she surprised him by saying, “I’m sorry.”

“No, Maja, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have forced you to tell me anything. It’s your life.”

She ignored that, staring at him a second as though working out how best to say whatever it was she was about to say.

“You’re leaving in a few days,” she began. “You have to understand, ever since I came here, no one has ever been in this cabin but me.”

He suspected as much. “Why?”

“Why do you think?”

She was in hiding, obviously. But one could have done that by doing a bad dye-job, acquiring fake identification and then living someplace where no one knew them. She chose to dump herself in the wilderness and be completely disconnected from normal life and any human contact. What would drive a woman to this extreme?

His eyes fell once more to the scars on her arm, and she was aware the moment it did. She ran a hand through them before herself studying the lines.

“There were more,” she said. “So many more of them. But these ones were the ones that hurt the most.”

Despite knowing she might still deflect it, he couldn’t help but ask, “Who were they?”

She pointed to the first two near her elbow. “My parents,” she moved on to the next ones, counting them off, “my younger brother, my aunt who was also my godmother and mentor, her husband, and my three best friends.” She raised her sleeve up to show her tattoos in full. “They’re the stars here,” then she pointed at the sole sphere, different from the rest. “I’m the moon.”

He didn’t know what to say. What were you supposed to say to someone who lost everyone? Yet she wasn’t misty-eyed, not at all on the verge of tears. She simply rolled her sleeve back down and clasped her coffee again. She took a sip, swallowed, and then fingered one of the middle lines. “One of them died before the rest. She was with me on a mission. We failed. I survived, she didn’t. When I got back to town, everyone was dead.”

“How did they die?”

“Fire.”

The word clanged in his head, like a trigger that forced him to see the image of a town engulfed, of charred bodies, different sizes, different ages. He was used to the word, encountered it so many times, but never in this context, never so close to how that event unfolded, the event that haunted him for years. Before he could begin to process her story, she was speaking again.

“I didn’t want to know your name because I don’t want you to know mine. I don’t want to know anything about you because I don’t want you to know anything about me. Except I keep telling you things and you keep telling me things and you’re leaving but I don’t want you to leave.”

 _Come with me_ , he almost said. But he couldn’t because his road was a lot worse than this small cabin where nothing could happen to her, good or bad. Here, he was able to postpone his life, to drop all his worries and delay his grief over what he had lost. He was no longer a headmaster, not a respectable former Specialist, his reputation sullied and dragged through the mud, friends and family most likely warned against him. He was now a fugitive, fresh off an escape, his pursuers probably still hot on his tail, with no less than a queen behind it and a powerful fairy pulling the strings. And yet, an irrational part of him wanted to ask her to come with him.

“But I have to leave,” he said.

She nodded.

He wondered if she would have said yes if he asked. If he explained everything, including the dangers they would face, there was no way she would come. But that irrational part of him insisted she might, craved to know what she would really say.

“Maja, I need to ask you something.”

“Do you still wanna know my old name?”

He was speechless again, not sure if this was a test or if she really intended to tell him. Revealing to him the meaning of the scars, who they represented, was touching but not actionable. Not so with a name. Despite him dismissing its importance, for someone who was in hiding, a name was something factual and traceable. But he so desperately wanted to know it.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Sasha. Sasha Ilina.”

He heard himself breathe out and realized he had been holding it in. “Sasha,” he said and held out his hand. “My name is Saul.”

There was a smile on her lips that turned into a frown. The light in her eyes darkened, but in the next blink it was gone. She overcompensated though, covering it further with an embarrassed grin, which came off more as uncertain with a hint of worry.

She gave a nervous laugh. “Not Silva though, right? It’s not Saul Silva?”

He lowered his hand. “How…”

They stared at each other, one of them with the ground crumbling beneath her, the other having a sinking realization that he knew who she was. Not precisely who, but how she knew him.

Eight life lines. Eight lives.

But there were more, so many more.

A fire that burned them all.

Neither of them moved, but her chest heaved and fell as her hands turned into fists. He saw the betrayal surface in her eyes, which mirrored what he felt. Yet he couldn’t form the thought, couldn’t give what she was a name. Only fairies have magic, but they, she, breaks the laws of nature, drawing on magic through sacrifice and death. That couldn’t be her. She couldn’t be one of them.

Her chair scratched the floor when she moved it backwards. Then she was standing, or trying to stand, and he realized it was fear that consumed her. Her body shook, gulping air as though she was drowning. Her eyes were panicked now, but when he reached out for her, she yelled, “No!” and moved further away. She hugged herself as she continued to drown, walking backwards until she was in the middle of the cabin, underneath the chandelier.

He went to her but didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to be touched and he couldn’t think of what to say.

“You’re from Aster Dell?”

He wanted her to say no, but it was as if she didn’t hear him. She fell on her knees and he followed, kneeling to watch her be overwhelmed by fear. He could hear her counting, hear her try to calm her breath, saw her close her eyes. She intertwined her fingers as though praying, but it was only numbers he heard, four, five, six… 

When she opened her eyes again, her breathing was steadier but there was still a well of emotions playing on her face, of anger and fear and disbelief and broken trust. She looked away from him then, as though she couldn’t stand it, turning her attention to the wooden floor where she took another steadying breath, and kept doing that for what seemed like forever.

She focused on him again and it was a dead stare she gave him. The anger and fear was gone, but the intensity in them would have been hard to bear had he not been reeling already.

“Yes,” she said.

For a second he didn’t understand, then remembered he had asked a question and the answer wasn’t what he wished it was. He found himself in that space between dreams and nightmares again, unable to distinguish real and not. And yet he knew he was fully awake and he heard how irrevocable her voice was, carrying with it the full meaning of what he was really asking.

“You’re a blood witch.”

“Evil,” she said. “You meant to say evil. Because that’s what they teach you in Alfea, right? That’s what Rosalind taught you. We’re evil. We hunt people and kill them. We sacrifice children and drink their blood.”

Didn’t they? His mouth opened but nothing came out.

But then he was saved the effort. From outside, they heard the sound of people talking. It seemed to have been going on for some time now, which they hadn’t noticed. 

He was first to stand, looking out the kitchen window, and there they were: two Solarians soldiers and two Alfean Specialists. Even before he saw him, he knew who one of the Specialists would be, his voice still familiar after all these years.

Andreas.

Next to him, Maja or Sasha also saw them. He turned to her and said, “They’re here for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, was super nervous about this chapter. Aside from the fact that it's a lot more serious than previous chapters, I wasn't entirely sure if this revelation about Maja will be received well. I briefly contemplated changing it, but then it wouldn't align with the rest of what's been written already so I just went for it. Also, this plot was the first idea I had when I began writing it.  
> For posterity purposes, this was written before season 2 of Netflix, just in case storylines there include how truly evil to the bone blood witches are (if ever this story does survive that long). I mean, the first time Rosalind mentioned it, I was just like, "Huh? That's the justification for killing all those people? They're all bad? Really? All?" I dont know if anyone else thought that, but I did.  
> Oh, and thanks to kingunder221b for suggesting the name Sasha.


	5. The Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of Part 1. Andreas finds the cabin. Saul and Maja deal with the discoveries they've made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely the most serious and longest chapter of the bunch (so far), but I mean, it's the end of Part 1, so...

“They’re not getting in,” Maja said.

The soldiers and specialists congregated just a few feet from the tree. They should be rushing toward the cabin, but instead they just stood there, looking around, scrutinizing the grass and the trees. Andreas knelt down and studied the ground where, a week ago, Saul stared at the sky above him waiting for death. His eyes skidded toward the boundary of the property and then frowned, confused.

Suddenly, it was clear to Saul: the cabin was hidden. His insistence that the tree came out of nowhere was right all along, he didn’t see because it wasn’t there, not until he was past it—the barrier or just something that tricked the eye. But then, that meant—

“ _I_ got in,” he said. “What do you mean they can’t get in?”

“There’s a barrier. It repels people. It makes them turn the other way.”

“I’m people and I got in.”

“You weren’t in the proper state of mind at the time.”

“But you are. How come you can get in?”

“Because I know I should.”

At this, they exchanged looks. If awareness was all it took, then the barrier won’t be able to help them. As it was, they watched Andreas remark to his colleagues on the drag marks on the soil that, from his point of view, must have ended abruptly, disappearing without a trace. This, Saul surmised from the way the man indicated the edge of the property and the frustrated look on his face. He finally stood up and looked away from the ground to stare straight ahead, to whatever view was shown to him.

Then he was following the drag marks, walking toward the barrier.

“They’re coming in,” Saul said.

He closed the curtains just as Andreas stopped and pushed a hand forward. The barrier sparkled with red veins, radiating outward from where his hand pierced it, different from the blue wavelike lights the one in Alfea emitted when disturbed.

Saul went to the study to close the curtains there too. There was only one door out the cabin, which was fully visible from where the group will be coming in. But there were windows. Without pause, he went back to Maja—he couldn’t think of her as Sasha, and that was probably something he needed to unpack later on—and took her hand, intending to go toward the farthest window from the door which was the one above the sofa. But she pulled her hand away and frantically took out a knife from the drawer instead, as though it would help in anything.

“Bathroom,” she told him.

“No. Window.” He pointed to it for emphasis.

He was then made immediately aware that the knife wasn’t for the intruders. It was for her, as she pressed the sharp edge against her left palm and ran it through, making a clean and deep cut that blossomed red.

“What the hell?”

She glared at him and, with her bleeding hand, dragged him to the other side of the cabin toward the bathroom, which happened to be the same direction as the sofa. He stopped in front of it, letting her hand go so he could open the window, but because there was so little time—they could already hear their footsteps, boots crushing the grass just outside the door—she just pulled him back and, without explaining what she was doing, stained his brow with her blood. He recoiled but there was already a good smear there, which he instinctively tried to wipe off.

She caught his hand. “Don’t.”

Then she pressed and pulled on the wound of her palm, letting it bleed further before rubbing it against her other hand.

There was a knock on the door.

Maja ignored it and took both his hands instead, wetting it with her blood. She began murmuring something which didn’t sound English. As she did, her pupils and the whites of her eyes disappeared in a sea of black. Then she was on her knees, painting his ankles red as well, continuing with that chant that, to him, sounded sinister, like an inverted prayer.

The knock became more insistent and was immediately followed by someone trying the doorknob. They could hear whispers behind it, movement, as they began investigating the outside of the cabin.

“Bathroom,” Maja said again, her eyes back to normal.

It was now too late to try the window, so he let himself be trapped in the bathroom which had no exit at all and just a tiny window that only a cat can fit through. But as they took a step toward it, Saul could already feel a warmth where her blood marked him. It cascaded from his forehead down his shoulders, spread from his hands, climbed from his feet, like a blanket but not quite, like a touch but more liquid.

She closed the bathroom door behind her using her elbow, continuing to ignore the group outside. Her hands were still bloody, which she then pressed against her arm. Two marks, one on the tattoos of her upper arm and the other on the scars. She started mouthing the same incoherent litany, her eyes turning black once again, as he continued to feel that warmth envelope his entirety.

He saw the tattoos on her arm disappear, so did the scars. This was followed by him becoming aware of something else.

There was an oval mirror above the faucet, which should have shown him standing behind Maja. Only, it didn’t. She stood alone in the mirror. He looked at his hands; they were still there. He touched his chest as though expecting them to pass through, but they didn’t.

“Maja—”

“Shut up,” she hissed. 

Outside, they heard shattering wood reverberating through the walls as the door was kicked open. And still Maja wasn’t distressed. She opened the faucet and began washing her hands. She let it stay under the stream for only about two seconds before she was closing it again.

“We’re not done,” Maja told him before leaving. And when she came out the bathroom, she yelled, “What the fuck!”

The entrance door swung open, which at least remained intact but there was a mess by the door jamb where it looked like a bite was taken out of the wood, bits and pieces of it on the floor. That door will not close again. This genuinely upset Maja, who wanted to inspect the door right away but chose to stay on the spot near the bathroom door.

The first one to enter was tall, blonde and well-built, a tired kind of arrogance in his strut though, at the moment, he exhibited surprise at seeing her.

“We knocked several times.”

“I didn’t hear you. And how long did you knock before you decided to break my door?”

He was followed by another who also wore an Alfean specialist uniform. Outside, she could just see a soldier through the window on her right; the other one must be on the left side.

“A while,” the blonde one said, casually heading to the kitchen. The other, slighter than him, went to the study, not yet touching anything but that was only because nothing yet interested him.

“Who the hell are you? And what are you doing here?”

The blonde noted the two coffees on the table, one on a cup, the other on a drinking glass. He tapped the table with a finger as though emphasizing this observation to her.

“We’re looking for a man. Have you seen anyone pass through here lately?”

“No.”

He skirted around the table and pondered the kitchen knife on the sink. It should still be lined with fresh blood and, as though it didn’t matter, he went on and considered the rest of the house, walking easily until he was standing by the bed. Outside, the soldier eyed her briefly as he passed by the window, likely heading to her shed.

“You don’t have the right to be here.”

“The tracks we’re following lead here and your home is camouflaged by a barrier. We have every right to investigate.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, my home is in the middle of a forest. I need the barrier to protect myself.”

“And who put up the barrier?”

“Paid a fairy to do it. Am I being interrogated?”

“Not at all.”

The other specialist opened her cupboard which was right next the study.

“Andreas,” the man said.

Her world whirled upon hearing the name. The thudding in her chest only increased in tempo as she began to feel warm and cold at the same time. It couldn’t be him. But it could only be him. She almost shot forward to pull him aside and ask if he was the same Andreas who made sure that her home burned sixteen years ago. Instead, she held herself together, forced her breath to slow down even as everything about her rioted against staying so still in one place.

She knew what it was they found, the sword which she should have put in the bathroom along with Saul. But there was so little time. And, sure enough, Andreas was pulling the thing from its perch, looking at her with a grin on his face as though victorious already. But she had lost the capacity to be nervous. A reckless part of her wanted to engage him, was tempted to spill out who she was and what he had done to her, curious to see if he’d feel righteous or shame. Had she dared move, she was sure that she would come running as though she had the physical strength to hurl him against the wall.

 _Breathe, just breathe_ , she told herself.

“I found it,” she said of the sword. “So, it’s a Solarian you’re looking for?”

“Not quite,” Andreas studied the weapon against the light. “A prisoner being guarded by Solarians. Where did you find it?”

“Half a mile east. Near the path there.”

“When?”

“About a week ago.”

“Who’s the coffee for?”

Maja glanced at the table then back at him again, relishing the lie she was about to say because she knew it wouldn’t be believed. “No one. I realized I wanted black coffee, so I poured a second one.”

And he merely smiled, amused.

Just that moment, the other two men from outside appeared by the door shaking their heads at him. He eyed them briefly and handed the sword to the other specialist and said, “Do you mind if I use the bathroom?”

“Yes, I do mind.”

But he was already heading there, and to her who stood in front of it.

She decided to block his way, throwing him a sharp glare, forgetting for a second that she wasn’t supposed to engage him and that, if she did, there was no way she could sustain the consequences. But it seemed to her that her life had suddenly gone circular, that even after hiding herself away, her past should find her and was forcing her to do something about it. She never wanted vengeance only because her defeat had been so absolute. Justice and fairness were ideas instilled on the naïve and gullible. Her entire clan was destroyed. Everyone she ever knew, ever saw, gone. Her life now only involved the essential. Die or survive. And because she didn’t die, then she had to survive. Nothing more.

But here, now, two of them under her roof…

Andreas scrutinized the quiet anger that radiated off her, his green eyes daring her to do something. “Are we gonna have a problem now?”

She fingered the cut in her palm, slightly opening it and feeling the blood seep through the tear. Already, she could hear the chant in her head, could picture him flying across the room, but she clenched her teeth and swallowed the words. Then she turned around so that she would be the one to open the bathroom door.

She did it carefully only because she expected that Saul would tuck himself behind the door. He may be invisible but he was still solid, so he better not be standing in the middle of the room. And, sure enough, when she pushed the door all the way to the side, she felt something block it from reaching the wall.

“After you,” she held the door open for him.

It was a very small bathroom and it should be immediately obvious that there was no one there. Still, the man went in and stood in the middle, noting that the shower curtain had already been pushed to the side and there was no one hiding behind it. The cabinet below the sink was too small to fit even a child, and there really was no place a grown man could hide.

“Should I give you some privacy?” Maja asked, mocking.

Andreas only smirked and took the effort to look behind her, at the gap between door and wall, even though it was a terrible place to hide. Seeing nothing, he took a step toward Maja and was instantly within inches of her face. 

She felt his breath on her cheek when he said, “Where is he?”

“How would I know?”

He pulled himself back a smidge, just enough for him to see her full face while remaining uncomfortably close, invading her personal space as though it would coerce her into speaking. But it wasn’t words she wanted to trade with him. When she remained silent, holding his stare without once blinking, he said, “You understand that when we get him, he’ll tell us everything and then we’ll get you too. But if you tell us where he went—”

“Then you better find him so that he can tell you I never did anything for him, and I would never do anything for someone like him.”

“Someone like him?”

“A criminal.” She hoped Saul understood that she meant this very much. 

Andreas continued to stare her down, not backing away, giving it a few more seconds of contained silence. “Alright,” he finally said, a promise of aggression in that one word. “If that’s how you want it to go.”

He then stepped around her to get out, but not before she managed to grab his hand. He stopped, eyed her, then the hand that held him, only then noticing that she had been bleeding and it was now all over his knuckles. He immediately pulled away.

Before he could wipe the blood off, Maja said the word and her eyes turned black once more.

He didn’t fly across the small bathroom or crumple to the floor. He remained standing there as though nothing had happened, but his posture changed from alert to relaxed. His shoulders sagged, his face blank and, in a second, his eyes were covered in the same ink of black.

Maja leaned forward until her mouth was next to his ear. “Leave.”

When she pulled back, Andreas blinked and his eyes were its normal green again. He appeared baffled, looking at her as though he had never seen her before then, with a glint of recognition, he scratched his chin as though trying to remember something else. She merely waited.

“Right,” he then stepped out of the bathroom.

The other three men were still looking around, one of them peeking under her bed, the others taking out books and browsing the pages, pulling cabinets and drawers, shaking loose blankets as though it would contain hidden clues as to their fugitive’s whereabouts. Andreas whistled, catching their attention.

“Let’s go. We’re done here.”

They took this news with only a little surprise, just one voicing a question on whether they should bring the sword with them, but which Andreas answered by shaking his head no. He didn’t even pause in his stride, moving with purpose toward the door that remained hanging open. The others could only follow and raise whatever questions they had outside.

Inside, Maja remained in the bathroom, watching the last of them exit the cabin and then the barrier, which sparked again with red veins as each one of them passed through it. Then she let the bathroom door swing close.

She heard him move but did not see, him taking his steps carefully until she could sense that he was standing in front of her. She chanted the words, not needing to touch him this time and, like the reverse of burning paper, he became visible once more.

Seeing him again, she couldn’t make sense of what she felt. When it was Andreas standing before her, the anger she felt, the hate, it was visceral and pure. There was no pain other than for the people she lost, no despair. He could have gone on and destroyed this very cabin, and it would have only heightened her antipathy against him, maybe prompted her to take on more drastic actions. But not so with this man, Saul Silva. The disillusionment was so overpowering, she wanted to beat at his chest and ask him why, why did it have to be him? She wanted him to take it back, tell her his name was something else, and then time can be suspended and they could remain in the cabin, blissfully ignorant of each other’s past again.

She turned around and walked out the bathroom, going straight for the sword which the other Alfean left on top her study table. She didn’t bother asking Saul to follow, as she heard him trailing after her while she dragged the sword to the main door and then outside.

She waited for him from the yard. His pace was slow, heavy, his gaze dark and brooding when he appeared outside the door. She was a couple of feet from where he was and, when he tried to come to her, she took a step back making him stop.

“Maja,” he began, but couldn’t add any other word than that. He licked his lips, looked away a second before again staring at her. As though he was already aware that it was the wrong thing to say, he told her, “I’m sorry.”

She would have laughed, but it was as though she was sinking, all humor and verve seeped out of her. She was standing there looking at him, but she was also on that cliff again, watching the smoke cover the skies, so thick it seemed like clouds about to pour rain. She was too late. They had done it. _He_ had done it. And sixteen years later, he would say _I’m sorry_. Hilarious. But her lips didn’t even quirk.

She threw the sword at his feet.

“Pick it up,” she said.

She saw understanding dawn on him as he looked at the sword then at her, his mouth tightly shut. The eyes that entranced her, that yearned to know her, now sought hers in a mix of aching and broken resolve. But he kept himself still, not making a move toward the sword.

“Pick it up!” Her left hand was in a fist, which she tightened and loosened to let the blood flow out.

He made no attempt to get the sword, not even looking at it.

She raised her hands, both palms facing him. “Suit yourself,” she said before speaking one more word and then her eyes darkened as something he didn’t see shoot out from her hands.

In one swift motion, he crouched and rolled to the side and, perhaps by instinct, his hand finally did find the sword, grasping its hilt. He raised his other hand to her in the general gesture for ‘stop’.

“Maja, don’t do this.”

Her eyes never returned to its normal color and she simply adjusted her aim, sending something which he yet again couldn’t see because he was already rolling to his left, the sword with him. It blew past him and he felt heat radiate off his side, only there was no flame. In its wake was a cold that could only be felt after a fire had gone out. He had a second to look at what happened, registering that the ground was now singed black, the grass charred and the soil cracked, a line of it stretching a couple of feet. Then Maja released another and he was rolling again.

She wouldn’t stop and he couldn’t keep dodging. He needed to do something else. He could count the steps it would take to reach her. He could picture a series of maneuvers, feign his steps to make her face a certain way, to rush her. And then he’d have her. But he couldn’t picture what he would do once he did, couldn’t imagine burying the sword in her chest. He couldn’t see anything other than looking into her eyes and asking her to stop.

Yet his body was moving the way he saw it. When she next took a shot, he rolled to his right but instead of staying down, he stood and began to make his way toward her. In the next attempts she made, he spun and leapt forward to either left or right until he was nearing her. He sweated not from the exertion but from the heat that had descended the yard, as though they were in furnace even though the skies remained cloudy and the trees whispered of cool air. Two more steps and she was within the sword’s reach. But he contemplated letting it go because he didn’t want to have to use it. He changed his grip on it though, pointing the tip opposite her so that it was only the handle he could use.

She began backing away as she slowly burned her yard, increasing the distance between them even though he was closing the gap fast. But then he made a misstep, her correctly predicting where he would feign next. He only had time to swing the sword in front of him as he crouched and planted his feet on the ground. His left elbow came up to protect his head while his right hand held the sword vertically even though he knew it was barely a shield to the thick heat she unleashed.

He was thrown a good three feet in the air and then away. The heat that passed through him was so quick, the pain didn’t register right away, not until he was lying on his back, fumbling for the sword but finding himself too sluggish to do anything but breathe. It was like a demon had possessed him and burned his insides before leaving him in a heap on the ground. There was a flood of white in his vision as though color had been razed from his sight and he realized he couldn’t hear anything other than the thumping in his chest and his erratic breathing. It lasted quickly enough because it needed to, adrenalin pushing everything else in the background as he tried to take possession of the sword again. Only it was too hot and he flinched when he touched it.

She took a step close to him, her eyes still inked black. He could either get the sword or move because he knew what was coming. He chose to move as she released that concentrated heat on him again, and again, and a third time more while he turned to his left and left and left. Somehow, he found himself close enough to reach her. He kicked her leg, which had her falling. Before she did, he grabbed the hand that was still bleeding, making it face the other way, and pulled her until she was under him and he was on top, straddling her.

“Maja, you have to listen to me.”

“You killed my entire family!”

“I tried to stop it!”

“But you didn’t, did you?”

She was a right-handed, that was why the cut was on her left. He concentrated too much on securing her left by planting his leg on the wrist and keeping the palm facing the ground. But she suddenly twisted his hold on her right and got loose, attempting a punch to his face. He parried it easily. Only, his knee had to slip from her other hand and, once it did, she was raising it to him and her eyes had darkened again. 

She had a direct shot at his head. Even though he dodged just in time, she could have still done damage because it wasn’t an arrow she was firing. It wasn’t precise or surgical. She could have burned an eye or a cheek or even just an ear. But there was a second where she hesitated, a second he took advantage of by capturing the hand once more so that when she did unleash her power, it missed him. Instead, it went in the direction of the tree.

Pieces of its trunk shattered before it caught fire. Broken wood littered its roots and the grass around it. Below him, he heard her whisper, “No.”

That was when he noticed the red sparks erupting from the barrier, faint at first but growing brighter the more the fire from the tree intensified. It flickered and popped, veins of red encasing them everywhere. The heat, which was already smoldering, only deepened further and the resistance from the hands he held vanished as they both watched the tree burn and the barrier lit everywhere like a dome above them. The fire was too quick, climbing up the branches now; soon it will swallow the leaves and, he suspected, the barrier will completely collapse.

“Let me go,” she said.

But he wouldn’t. He wished he could trust that she wouldn’t try to hurt him if he did, but his crime against her was just too immense for her to be distracted from it by the tree or the failing of her barrier.

The cold fury in her eyes returned. Then she said, “Saul.”

It was one of those things he hadn’t imagined but when it came, he knew it wasn’t how he wanted it. The sound of his name in her voice didn’t come as sweet or even casual. Rather, it was tinged with hatred and bitterness, the look in her eyes so different from the many pictures he had of her in his head.

“Let me go, Saul.”

He almost did, not only because she asked, but because he couldn’t stand what was happening, the contrast of where they were now from days ago. There was one particular memory that stood out among all.

“Answer me one question,” he said, “when I was sick, did you ever kiss my hand?”

He watched her grind her teeth and he knew, by the disgust that showed on her face, that it was real. The things he continued to question, all of it, real. She may not have stalked the cabin, but he knew that she checked in on him often enough even from the windows. She stood naked by the cabinets after a shower thinking he was asleep. She dropped blood into his mouth to heal him. She kissed his hand to ease the sleep of someone who had been having nothing but nightmares. And she blushed when he stared, laughed when he teased, and she let him touch her scars and told him what they mean. If only he had not been Saul Silva.

He didn’t know what he was doing anymore. He didn’t know how this was supposed to end. If only he could make her understand. If only there was a way she would listen. But what could he say that would appease her? It wasn’t enough that sixteen years ago, he was lied to, that he was made to believe he was doing the right thing. He couldn’t paint himself the victim when she was the one who lost so much. Whether he was responsible or not, he was still part of the people that destroyed her life.

She struggled against him, trying to free her hand or make it turn toward him, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Stop it,” he said as though she would. “Stop. Sasha!”

“Fuck you!”

This was followed by her releasing another blast directed to the ground next to them. The force of it threw them to the other side and Saul lost his grip on her. They grunted and groaned, but were still in the same proximity as before. He was first to recover, seeing the sword lay inches from his hand . He grabbed it even though he knew he wouldn’t use it, some physical compulsion for him to have a weapon when in danger.

She stood up about the same time as he who pointed the sword at her. “We came there to kill the burned ones. The town was supposed to be empty.”

“It wasn’t.”

When she released another flash of heat, he spun around to dodge it, swinging the sword with him. As he completed his spin, the sharp edge made a direct line to her neck but which he stopped just an inch before it struck. Even then, she could have done something. She could have heated the sword, could have blasted him away. Instead, like him, she merely waited.

“Do it,” she said. “I should have died sixteen years ago.”

“I can’t kill you.”

“But you can kill everyone else, is that it?”

“Because I owe you my life.”

“I didn’t want to save you.”

He lowered his sword. “Then take it. Why are you holding back?”

She didn’t answer, maybe couldn’t. But then he could see that, beneath the disgust, the pain and the exhaustion, was an emptiness so deep, he couldn’t imagine what would fill it. She hated what was happening, but she needed to do it, compelled by her history, her pride, or her conscience.

“Sasha—”

“—don’t…”

He let go of the sword a second time, letting it fall to the ground. The tree was now burning fully, the yellow flames angrily licking branches, breaking it apart, and smoke rising higher. The red veins of the barrier were going haywire, bright in places and pale in others. Already, there were gaps, holes that wouldn’t be repaired. But they weren’t looking. They only stared at each other.

“Do what you have to,” said Saul.

Her eyes softened, but which she hid by closing them. Her breathing was heavy, her face sweaty, and his chest hurt looking at her this way. He realized then that he had never really moved on from that event and here, as he was confronted by the reality of what he had been part of, he never hated himself more. Next she opened them, there was moisture in her eyes but not enough to form tears. She walked up to him, her movement quiet as ever, broken only by the roaring fire while ashes flew in the air around them. She didn’t blink once, didn’t take her eyes off him. When she was right in front of him, she took his hand.

She rolled up his sleeve until the whole of his forearm was exposed. Then, without touching, her hand hovered just below the crook of his arm, and he felt his skin burn. It penetrated past the first layer, deep enough for him to form beaded sweat from his already perspiring forehead and for his eyes to water. He bit his lip, but went against the physical instinct to pull away and let her do it. It was only right and it should hurt a lot more. The burn was an angry red, as thick as one of her scars, going around his arm in a circle. She kept at it for a few seconds either to make sure that it stayed forever or that he felt the pain. When she was done, she didn’t immediately let go but looked at her handiwork, a single life line on his arm embedded with a message he didn’t know how to put into words.

“I don’t ever wanna see you again,” she finally let go. Then she turned her back to him and went to watch the tree be completely consumed by the fire.

He didn’t say goodbye out loud, but his soul bled with it. As he walked past the failing barrier, he looked back. Not once did she turn her head to him. The barrier was completely gone by the time he found the path she pointed to just yesterday. Soon enough, the only thing he could see of her and the cabin was the smoke rising to the sky. But even that eventually faded and all he was left with were the trees surrounding him, the path he kept to, and the throbbing burn on his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's part 1. Still nervous about posting this because it doesn't end happily, but if you read back on the summary of this story, it was always implied that Saul will leave the cabin in part 1.  
> I would like to credit Tan with giving me the idea that Maja should see how Saul fights. I know this isn't the scene you asked for, but it just gave me the idea. Also, because I'm not a stunt choreographer and don't know how he can show off without attacking, this happened--Saul rolls a lot! 😅  
> I have chapter 6 in my head, but I haven't decided yet on the general arc for part 2. I have a bunch of ideas but I don't think of any of them will work, especially with only 5 chapters. So, it might be longer than normal before I post any new chapters.  
> A side note on chapter 1: to those who read it weeks ago, I just only recently understood what the word "aggro" means. English isn't my first language and I'm more exposed to American shows, though I do watch a lot of British ones. But maybe because it's more _period_ British shows I watch that I'm not that familiar with British slangs. So the first time I heard "aggro" was when Riven says it in ep 1, and I thought he said "agro" and that meant "pseudo" even though it doesn't make sense. But hey, it's slang. So I went ahead and used that in chapter 1 🤣. Anyway, that's since been corrected.


	6. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maja has moved out of the cabin, but couldn't quite erase Saul from her mind.
> 
> This is the first chapter of part 2, though I chose not to break the story apart since it makes more sense to me to have it in one work. But since this has a different tone and setting, I'm marking it as Part 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Maja-centric chapter, though sprinkled with a lot of Saul.

_The car was stopped from its fast descent to the bottom by a tree, its front crumpled like paper, smoke rising from the engine, both headlights dead. The passengers were in various stages of consciousness, the driver receiving the worst of it. Despite the airbag that ballooned at just the right time and the seatbelt that did its work holding her in place, she still slid forward hard enough at that last impact and hit the steering wheel. The one in the passenger seat fared much better without the impediment of the steering wheel, though Sasha’s head bled badly from the many banging she endured as they rolled down from the main highway onto this… whatever it was. She groaned, lifting her head from the now popped airbag, feeling her neck creak and the seatbelt strangling her. Then she remembered the passengers in the back._

_The baby girl’s cries filled the car, too loud like a school alarm. She was being held by her sister who didn’t seem fully conscious, as the baby flailed and kicked, sitting there on her lap, the both of them under the same seatbelt._

_“Is the baby okay?” Sasha was surprised that she could talk properly. At the same time, she had the notion that she should be moving toward them, twisting around in her seat so she can check on them properly. But she could only turn her head, her back refusing to do anything but stay leaning forward toward the dash. “Daphne? Are you okay? Is your sister okay?”_

_Daphne was moving her head slowly, blood running down her ear and nose. The baby didn’t appear to be bleeding and the loud wailing demonstrated that she can at least breathe properly._

_On the driver seat, Sasha’s aunt began to stir. The woman groaned before pushing herself up, emitting a yelp in the process. When Sasha saw the amount of blood coming out her aunt’s nose, covering half the woman’s face, it took her out of her daze and she was able to lift her back finally._

_“Aunt Kira!” She reached out a hand and cried out, realizing that she had broken her arm. Her aunt turned toward her. Sasha expected panic or concern, or just some sort of acknowledgement that they had just suffered a terrible car accident, that everything was fucked-up. Instead, Aunt Kira merely looked beyond her toward the window, grit on her face as she pushed what must be incredible pain and sat up._

_“We need to do it now,” she said._

_“What?”_

_“This wasn’t an accident.” She then nodded for Sasha to look behind her out the window. Sasha turned around slowly, getting a glimpse of someone walking to them, a woman, possibly the same age as her aunt, and for a second she didn’t understand. Surely, this stranger was coming to help them, why would Aunt Kira say…_

_Then again, a stranger about to help would have been rushing to them. She would not have been so poised or so composed as this person._

_Sasha’s aunt was already moving, trying to take the baby from the backseat, which proved to be somewhat of a problem because of the seatbelt and, despite having no energy at all, Daphne’s fierce hands that wouldn’t let go._

_Not having the time to deal with seatbelts and an overprotective sister, Kira called on Sasha. “Put your blood on her.”_

_“But aunt, we don’t have the energy to do this. We need the Stone Circle.”_

_“We’ll have to do something different. Just put your blood on her and hold tight; I’ll do the chant. We’re running out of time.”_

_Rosalind was still a few meters away. She continued on that even pace. The slope wasn’t that steep, but it was dark and the people in the car were not going anywhere. She’ll get there soon enough. But then, at the sight of a small glow inside the car, she realized she should hurry._

_“Fuck,” she said._

///

Maja was washing the dishes, thinking of nothing in particular except for cleaning the oil out of this stupid pan, when she felt his hands slide from behind her to around her ribs, encompassing her in a hug. She smiled, thrilled and shy at the same time, not quite knowing how to react. It had been a long time since anyone took such a liberty with her and she probably should chide him for it—he wasn’t her boyfriend, he wasn’t anything—but she couldn’t make herself. He placed his chin on her shoulder, breathing the smell of her, before planting a kiss on her neck. It tickled and made her tilt her head toward him as though pushing him away, but he only kissed a cheek and chuckled softly against her ear.

Saul turned her around so she was now facing him, and then gave her a brilliant smile. Gods, those eyes. All he’d have to do was look at her and she was a puddle before him. Then he kissed her. She really shouldn’t let him do this. There were things to consider, this one very important thing that should make this intolerable. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t think why this should be so wrong. So she kissed him back, even as she realized that she couldn’t quite feel his lips. She ran her fingers through his hair, aware that she couldn’t quite touch him.

When he disengaged, he looked at her, the same look he used to give her right before he would ask if she was real. She laughed and was about to pre-empt his question. But then, the look on his face changed from playful to serious.

“Do it,” he said.

There was a knife under his chin, a knife that she was holding there, the sharp edge pressed to his neck.

“Do it,” he said again.

“I can’t.”

He sighed, disappointed. Then she felt something penetrate her chest. She looked down, realizing that he too held a knife, and it was now embedded in her heart. She didn’t feel it the way she thought she should, but that didn’t change what just happened. She looked up at him somewhat confused, before understanding that, yes, he was always gonna do this.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Then Maja opened her eyes.

It took just a second for her to understand that she was now awake and that she wasn’t really stabbed. Then she turned in bed and faced the ceiling, whispering a “fuck you,” to the man in her dream, even as she dissected it and how she should have known that it wasn’t real because she didn’t even feel any pain. Or how the kiss was so muffled, so incomplete. And why was she even dreaming about that? Every day for the past two weeks, it had been him. Either he was kissing or killing her or both. She refused to believe that it was because she was thinking of him that much. All day yesterday, she didn’t think of him once, except for when she was making breakfast, also when she was making her late afternoon tea. That was it, plus before she went to bed, she had a serious and maybe protracted analysis of the last time they saw each other, the things he said, the way he moved, but it wasn’t like she thought about kissing him. Why would she keep dreaming that? The knife, she understood. It was horrifying seeing it play out in her dream, but it still made sense. The kissing was just stupid.

She got up and went to the bathroom, still thinking about it. It was only seven in the morning, as was the usual time she got up when she was still in the woods—this was something she planned to retain in this new life. Definitely too early for work, which was at ten. Upon stepping out the bathroom, while she contemplated making breakfast, she said, “screw it,” and put on a jacket to go to a diner instead. She didn’t want to think about that man and just the thought of making any kind of meal was already doing that.

The sun had just come up though there were still remnants of night, as in the fog that covered most of the street. Maja welcomed the chill, which she thought went well with her already grumpy mood. Once in the diner, she took a booth by the window and a waitress came along soon enough, asking her what she’d like. She had been having breakfast here for the last four days and the waitress, Agnes, was already familiar to her, simply asking, “same as yesterday?” to which Maja replied with “yes”.

“Hun, can I give you some advice?” Agnes asked after writing down her order.

Maja blinked at her, not knowing why the woman would think an advice would be welcome. Even so, Maja could already tell that whatever she was about to say was gonna be so off the mark that she would find it amusing. So she said, “Sure.”

“Go back to that salon and get that hair fixed. I mean,” Agnes leaned forward so she could look at the back of her once long hair now chopped just above her shoulders. “It’s not too obvious because your hair’s wavy, but they still did a bad job at it. It’s so uneven.”

Maja thought she should feel embarrassed about this, but she just found it funny. After all, it wasn’t any salon that did the cut.

“You think so?” she said.

“Or I could have my friend Marla fix it for you.”

“Really? I might just take her up on that.”

“Sure, I’ll let her know.”

“Does she also do color? I’ve been meaning to turn my hair brown.” She should have done it already, but kept putting it off. And now two weeks had passed and she still hadn’t changed it.

“Why?” At this, Agnes looked dismayed. “Blonde looks so nice on you.”

“Just wanted a change.”

Agnes contemplated this and seemed to be picturing her with brown her. Then she shrugged, giving a dubious, “might be good”, before leaving to get her order made.

Maja read the newspaper as she ate breakfast. Then lingered a little longer after she was done, just drinking her coffee and staring out the window, watching the city, Adquistes, wake up. She gave herself three weeks to decide whether it was the place for her, which meant she still had one week left. It had its charms but, so far, she wasn’t feeling it. Everything here was loud, harsh and hard, from the concrete ground to the cement walls of buildings. Trees were few and far in between and, if she really wanted to see some greenery, she’d have to walk a few miles to a park, and even then, it was manicured lawns, well-arranged flowers, fenced trees, and walkways with benches on them. Then again, she didn’t think she’d find any place she’d like that wasn’t the quiet of the woods and the cabin that used to be completely invisible from the outside world.

She stopped herself from any further reflection, sure that thoughts of the cabin would lead back to the man she didn’t want to think about. So, she finished her cup and then paid her bill.

Upon leaving, she noticed a customer sitting on a stool by the counter, and the only reason why she did was because he was looking at her in the first place. More accurately, he was _discreetly_ looking at her and, upon her becoming aware, resolutely averted his eyes.

She left the diner, but not before giving the man another look. He was probably around the same age as her, somewhat serious-looking, but she couldn’t really tell anything else about him. She made sure she remembered his face just in case he turned out to be the reason why she had to leave this town.

///

It was when she was at the shower that she surrendered to her thoughts, but not deliberately. Thoughts were like that. It just goes on and on wherever it wants to go then, before you know it, you were in the middle of the very thing you were avoiding thinking about. One moment she was contemplating buying a cellphone, which appeared to be the most valuable possession anyone can have nowadays, next she was hearing his voice as he told her that being in the cabin prevented anything from happening to her, including the good. Suddenly, she was sitting on that table again, him looking at her and trying to elicit a reaction. And she would have, except she couldn’t think of what to say. Once upon a time, she thought the same way. When she started that life years ago, she knew what it would entail—the monotony, the silence, the solitude. To hear someone else say it, it displaced her for a second and she saw how much time passed by, the many years she willingly wasted away.

Then she was seeing his face in full. She tried to shake it off, but a part of her didn’t want to, not really. Those deep-set eyes staring at her, that little smirk on his lips, a dimple on his right cheek, even just the memory of it made her heart flutter.

She closed her eyes as though that would erase the image, but it only magnified him. There he was, asking her if she’d miss him, then he was sitting next to her, eating his first proper meal, asking to touch her scars. She should have never let him, should have never told him what they mean. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to know more about her and he wouldn’t reveal who he was.

This was stupid, of course. Regardless of whether she knew or not, he was still the man who stood at the ruins of her hometown.

“You are such an idiot,” she told herself. But what she really meant to say was ‘traitor’.

How could she have saved him? She should have let him die there. Then she would have inadvertently avenged her loved ones, partially. She also would have never needed to leave the cabin. She didn’t have to withstand the disruption to her quiet little life in her quiet little haven. Did he even know how much energy it took to heal him? If he did, he’d likely be repulsed by her methods rather than grateful. Did he know that it was she whom he sought in the worst of his nightmares? That, even while sick, he still had enough strength to crush her fingers as he begged her to make his demons disappear. Would he recall how many times he asked if she was real? With his face all bruised and his body racked with fever, did he remember that he looked at her in such awe and told her, “Something like you couldn’t be real.”? And once, in a better state, he even told her how beautiful he thought she was before he pressed a kiss on the palm of her hand.

She hung her head, letting water pour down her head as the past tided over her—the fire, the smoke and, after, walking through the streets she grew up in, not recognizing anything. Then she stumbled upon the first body, then another and another, hours she walked those ashen streets until finally she found her little brother, her parents, her grandmother… 

_I tried to stop it_ , he said.

“Then why did it still happen?” she asked the wall.

She tried not to think about it anymore. Concentrating instead on what she would do if she decided to fully settle here in Adquistes. Among other things, she needed to find a better paying job. Currently—and this was because she just felt like it—work was as a scooper in an ice cream parlor just around the corner.

She mechanically put on her uniform, which was the requisite striped apron that also served as a dress, underneath of which was a white shirt with a crisp collar and, sadly, no bow ties. As she did so, she bombarded her thoughts with everything other than that man, of the financial problems tied into trying to fit in and the consequent need to have her identity (even a fake one) recorded in a dozen different records. This included getting a bank account, a credit card, a cable subscription (presumably after buying a tv), an internet connection (apparently people’s lifeblood nowadays), and a million other things. So many places her fake name and real address would have to be recorded.

But his face still popped in time to time, him laughing at these basic things that no one in this age would consider problematic. She would stare at the wine cork on top her fridge, the only thing she brought with her of that nineteen-year-old bottle from the cabin, and cluck her tongue because it was meant to remind her of Aster Dell, not him. She told herself that once in the shop, he’d be gone from her mind.

“Hi Anya,” her co-worker waved at her the moment she arrived. She was an eighteen-year-old college student taking up marketing, also wearing the same uniform, her name tag announcing her as “Olive”.

Maja then pinned her name tag on her left breast. It said “Anya.”

“Hey, Olive,” Maja greeted back.

She liked Olive. She was a perky little thing and seemed to genuinely enjoy working in the shop despite the meager pay. She was also a non-stop talker which most people might find exhausting but Maja, who lived alone for the last sixteen years and hadn’t yet fleshed out a backstory for her identity as Anya, found it very welcome. Though the most remarkable thing about her was how she never asked much about Maja, including her tattoos and scars. Everyone she met would ask first thing or would get around it eventually. Even those whom she passed by on the street would stare at it as though they had never encountered anyone with such markings on their skin before. But Olive, on their first meeting, merely squinted at it and then moved on.

At eleven, Maja flipped the “Closed” sign to “Open”. As the hours went, she never found herself bored. The ice cream parlor was the one place that her thoughts were fully in the moment and not back in the cabin with that man. If she wasn’t handing out ice cream or tidying up in the back, she was discussing Olive’s college life or random ruminations, like what exactly they teach in fairy schools or what would happen if a non-fairy inherited the Solarian throne.

It was only near the end of her shift that she was pulled out of this daily slice of peace, when her head happened to turn at a pivotal moment and she saw from across the street, mixed in with the pedestrian and bystanders, a man.

Saul.

It was the longest half-second she had experienced in her life, in which from a distance of maybe forty meters, their eyes met and he, not showing any kind of surprise, kept on walking. Maja, on the other hand, was instantly on her feet. Then she was stepping away from the counter, heading out the door, and was standing on the sidewalk, trying to pinpoint which one was him as he got swallowed by the crowd.

It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. She was sure he understood what would happen if she ever saw him again. Granted, she wouldn’t be able to follow-through on it, but she was very clear on that. It could have been anyone, just some random guy who resembled him, or he might not resemble him at all and it was just her mind projecting his face onto people. It was too fast for her to have really seen his face anyway. It was just a glimpse, not even that, a flash. It wasn’t him.

The logic of this seemed solid so she held on to it throughout the rest of her shift. Meanwhile, Olive droned on about a long-time crush she was sure was close to asking her out, to which Maja merely nodded and did her best to listen, even as her mind scrutinized the image in her head, replaying that half-second, picturing it repeatedly until the image became disjointed and she was convinced that she was only seeing things.

///

Her dreams were getting worse, not better, as though the longer the gap between the present and her time with him became, the fiercer her subconscious held on to his memory. The thing was, she was sure that she wanted to forget him. She was also sure that kissing him had never been a thought she had and certainly not anything beyond that which was where her most recent dream went.

And yet, she couldn’t shake it off. All through the day, as she went through her morning eating at the diner, then walking around the park, images of her clinging to him as their naked bodies moved rhythmically, continued to persist. It was still there when she went to work and Olive told her the good news—Mark, her long-time crush, finally asked her out. And it stayed there as she served people of all ages their triple scoops or banana boats or banana splits. She almost wished there’d be an incident in the shop so that she could dislodge herself from her perverted thoughts. But even then, there was a part of her that relished how debauched her thoughts were, mainly because there was no way she could make them real. It tempted her to let it reign because no one could know, that she should go against every instinct that told her liking him, even a little, was a betrayal to her kin because they can’t see her thoughts and only her actions counted.

But it wasn’t like her actions were stellar. She still let him go after a half-hearted attempt at revenge. And now, she was dreaming about sleeping with him. Fuck her subconscious.

“You okay, Anya?” Olive asked, leaning on the counter, looking at her.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She gave her a smile even though she knew it wasn’t convincing.

“You don’t talk a lot about yourself much, do you?”

“There’s nothing interesting about me.”

“Sure there are. Those scars, for example.”

Maja tilted her head at her, hiding her disappointment as she waited to be asked. But Olive just laughed and said, “See. You don’t talk about yourself. That was an opener and you didn’t bite.”

“If you wanna know, ask.”

“I’d rather you tell me when you want to.”

The girl would wither and die before that happened. Maja had only ever told one person what the scars meant and she never, ever will again, not after making that mistake. But this gave her a newfound respect for Olive and how her constant chattering wasn’t, after all, a self-absorption.

The bell above the door jingled, announcing the arrival of a new customer. Both of them looked up as the door opened and in came a man. He seemed suspiciously familiar to Maja, and it only took her two seconds to know why. He was the man from the diner yesterday, the one who was discreetly looking at her. She instantly went into alert mode.

Without taking her eyes off him, she said, “Olive, do you mind checking if there’s another blueberry cheesecake at the back? We’re running low.”

But Olive just absentmindedly replied with, “Yeah, there is.”

Maja gazed at her. “Could you check anyway?”

Olive gave her a questioning look then eyed the new customer. She must have noticed how serious-looking the guy was, someone who wouldn’t be caught dead in a place so full of pastels with his black leather jacket and crew cut. Then she shrugged and went to the back.

The moment she did, Maja’s hand fumbled underneath the cash register until it closed upon the handle of a knife she had taped there on her first day of work.

“What can I get you?” She asked the man. She was almost sure that he was in the military or some other simply by his stance—he planted both his feet on the ground, never idling on one leg, his back straight, hands clamped together behind his back, eyes severe as though selecting an ice cream flavor was of paramount importance.

Then he looked at her and gave her a smile. A smile!

“What would you recommend?”

“Cheesy cheese seems to sell a lot.”

“What’s in it?”

“Cheese.”

He chuckled softly and, gazed back at the display. “What about you? What flavor do you like?”

Gods, couldn’t he just get on with it? If he was about to pull a sword or a knife or nunchuks, couldn’t he dispense with the pleasantries and do it already?

The bell jingled again as another customer came in, but Maja kept her eye on the man. She went with, “Chocolate Overload.”

He studied her face a second, the look he gave pretty much confirming to her that it wasn’t ice cream he was thinking of. And yet, he went on with the ruse. “Then I’ll have that.”

So, she went with it too, already pulling the knife off its nest but still keeping it hidden behind her back. “How many scoops?”

The smile was back on his face, as though to acknowledge that she already knew what he was thinking. “How about two?”

She thumbed the knife’s edge, her fingers gripping the handle as she lowered it her side. She couldn’t think of letting it go just so she can actually give him his two scoops of ice cream. So, she said, “Why don’t you just tell me why you’re really here?”

The man had the gall to pretend surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I saw you yesterday. You were in the diner at breakfast. You’re following me.” 

She saw him work his jaw as he clenched his teeth, his face turning red. Behind him, the new customer listened to this exchange with patience, but Maja only had eyes for the man. Then in one breath, both she and him spoke at the same time.

Maja said, “—you’re not taking me—” which overlapped with the man’s, “—I just wanted to know you—”

Maja almost dropped the knife. “What…?”

“What did…?” the man said. “Take you… on a date, you mean?”

Before Maja could decide if she should believe this, the new customer, said, “Uhm, excuse me.”

It was an innocent enough phrase. But it wasn’t that which sent Maja’s head spinning. It was the voice. Her eyes snapped to him, growing large as it did. There was no mistaking it this time. It was him, the man she couldn’t get out of her mind. He was right there, looking so much better than last she saw him. Not only that, he stood there, unruffled, not a hint of the remorse she thought he should be exhibiting, and should continue to exhibit in her presence, forever and ever.

He gazed at her as though to make sure that she recognized him, before turning his attention back to the man.

“I’m sorry,” Saul said to him. “But the lady is spoken for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're at part 2! I have nothing to say other than I don't completely know how to write it.🤣  
>   
> Case in point, I wrote around 1,500 words of flashback even though I was already ware that it won't make it in chapter 6 (it gave too much away). I also wrote a different chapter 6 and almost posted it yesterday, before rewriting the whole thing and dumping 3,500 words out of it.  
>   
> If you're still reading, bear with me. It's gonna be rough guys.


	7. Run and Hide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saul convinces Maja that she has to go on the run again, with him preferably.

Andreas had been sitting in the car for the last hour. Reuben, a fellow Specialist, was in the passenger seat beside him, chewing a bubble gum that must already be so stale it might as well be rubber. Both of them watched the street even though it wasn’t at all within view of the ice cream parlor, tucked away in the next corner from the shop but near enough for it to matter. They’ve sent in two operatives just thirty minutes ago, who have sent back a picture of the woman. She had significantly shorter hair and, for some reason, tattoos and scars on her arm, but it was her, the witch. 

He had to wonder if, had he known about the tattoos which she must have hidden somehow when he met her, finding her would be easier. After going back to the cabin and rummaging through every inch of that place, they didn’t find a single name. She had no IDs, no bills, no transactions to speak of, absolutely zero trail to follow. Some people in the nearest town seemed to know of her but could give no information other than a name, Maja, which was easily shed. No one knew if she had friends, acquaintances, let alone an idea where she’d go. They couldn’t even tell what she did for a living.

So, they turned to Ben Harvey. It was amazing what the fairy could do once prodded. He managed what they couldn’t and all it took was a broken bottle. Now, they had her. All they needed was the right timing. 

“Let me see that picture again?” Reuben said.

“Why?” Andreas asked even though he knew the answer.

“Just wanted to make sure I recognize her.”

It wasn’t the reason, but he gave him his phone with the woman’s picture in it.

“Damn,” Reuben said a second time. The first time was a little more dramatic, which he followed with a series of flagrant descriptions of what he would like to do to a woman like that. So, Andreas was glad it was just a small ‘damn’ this time. “Are you sure that’s her?”

“Positive.”

He whistled. “So that’s a blood witch.”

Andreas took his phone from the man’s hand. Something about the label just rubbed him wrong. Maybe it was the reminder of what he let happen sixteen years ago, maybe he just didn’t like the sound.

“Why do you think Rosalind wants her?” Reuben asked next.

Andreas just shrugged.

“She’s all ‘blood witches break the basic tenets of magic’ and ‘only fairies can have magic’, then suddenly she pulls out all resources just to find this woman.”

It troubled Andreas too. But he had known the old fairy long enough not to bother asking. The woman had a way of telling complete lies even while not saying a single falsehood. It was a particular specialty, that and playing the long game. And while she may be ruthless in her methods, she always had good reasons for them, at least he trusted that she did. This time should be no different.

“Maybe she’s planning to kill her.” Reuben said. “Would she do something like that? Outright murder?”

Andreas almost laughed. If only he knew what Rosalind was capable of. But he only kept his mouth shut.

Not discouraged from his lack of response, Reuben went on, “You must be worried about your old buddy Saul. Your kid probably doesn’t stop talking about him, especially now he thinks he's dead. I heard he basically calls him dad.”

“Would you shu—” Andreas’s phone beeped at that moment as another message came in.

It was another picture, though this time, it wasn’t just of the woman. She was now speaking to someone. And that someone looked unmistakably like Saul.

He straightened up in his seat, Reuben noticing immediately, prompting him with a “What is it?” to which Andreas’ only response was to show him the photo.

“We have to make a move now.”

He then made a call to the sender and told him, “Clear the shop and make sure they stay there,” before hanging up.

///

Olive, maybe thinking that she had disappeared enough time even though it had only been at least five minutes, chose that moment to go back to her post at the counter. Even before she reached it, she already noticed the knife in Maja’s hand.

“Wow Anya, that’s a big-ass knife. What do you need it for?”

Then she saw the look on Maja’s face, which was far from the serene one she usually wore. Also, that there were now two customers in queue, and one of them was jaw-dropping gorgeous. She could tell that it was this one that caused Maja’s disgruntled look.

“Who’s this?” she whispered next to her ear. “Tell me that’s not your boyfriend ’cause I’m willing to sell my soul to have that daddy right there.”

Maja, whose mind was a jumble at the moment, still was able to hear Olive and, for once, she didn’t appreciate how the girl broadcasted her thoughts all the time. There were just too many things to process, the first being, was that really him? It most definitely looked like him, sounded like him, moved like him. So, it must be him.

But what the fuck was he doing here?

Maybe she was dreaming. After all, why would he tell this guy that ‘she was spoken for’? Who the hell spoke for her? Him? Hah! That was so far from what they were, Olive adding fuel to it, she could only conclude that this was a dream (did this mean they might kiss at any moment? And then he’d try to kill her?) or she had gone insane. 

When she didn’t answer, still staring at him, sure that he was gonna disappear any time now, Saul introduced himself to Olive.

“Connor. Connor Garin.”

How? How in hell did he know what surname she was using?

“You’re her husband?” Olive asked incredulously.

The man, whom Maja had forgotten was still there, also had the same tone when he asked her, “You have a husband?”

That’s it. She had gone insane. She was locked in an asylum somewhere and all of this was just in her head. Still, she had to correct this claim. “No, I don’t. He’s _not_ my husband. You see a ring?”

“We’re in a bit of a rough patch right now,” Saul smiled at the two who asked.

“Oh really?” Not taking her eyes off him, she lifted her arm and addressed the girl next to her, “Olive, you were curious about these scars? Would a husband do that to his wife? Because he did.”

Saul was immediately shaking his head. “Uh, no. No, I didn’t. She did that to herself. And then did this to me.” He then rolled up his sleeve to reveal a single pink scar encircling his right arm.

“I’m staying out of this,” the guy, whose name she never even knew, began backing away. “Sorry for the… whatever.” He gave her a kind of desperate look then proceeded to the exit.

“I’m staying out of this too,” Olive said and then disappeared again to the back of the shop.

That was when she noticed that most of the customers were now paying attention to them, even though she didn’t think they were being loud. A downside of having a small store, any scene was a big scene.

Saul said, “You wanna go someplace private so we could talk?”

“I’m not going anywhere with you Saul.”

“We kinda don’t have time for you to argue with me.”

She considered what he was implying as he gave her a non-verbal signal: his pupils going to his left. She looked at where he indicated and saw two teen boys, one of whom was glued to his phone while the other chatted with him, though Maja couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Seriously?” she said.

“Their Specialists-in-training, third-years.”

“And why, pray tell, would they not send a full-fledged Specialist here?”

“You kidding? Have you seen this place? It’s much easier to send teens than bring in a child as a prop. There’s an abundance of teens in Alfea.”

“Grown men can like ice cream,” she said, though that didn’t turn out so well for the last customer who just came in. “Or women.”

“Sasha, could you just come with me? We really don’t have time. The only reason why they’re not doing anything right now is because there are civilians in here.”

“First, don’t call me Sasha. It’s Anya,” she pointed to her name tag for emphasis. Then, because she still hadn’t settled into that name, she clarified with, “Or Maja. Second, maybe they weren’t intending on doing anything until you showed up. Third, how could they even find me? They haven’t in sixteen years. For all I know, it’s you they’re after.”

She could see the impatience on his face which, seconds ago he was trying to contain, but now showed it outright with him licking his lips and getting a little bouncier where he stood. Then, as though she dared him, he nodded at her and then backed away from the counter. For a second she thought she had won and he was gonna leave her alone, with it she felt this flash of neglect as though cold air had swept in, but this was short-lived because all he did was take two steps backward.

Making sure she could see what he was doing, he said in more normal volume, “Gordon. Finneran.” He then looked at the two boys, who in turn raised their heads at him.

“Mr. Silva,” one of them said.

“Been a while, Gordon.”

“It sure has.”

Gordon’s phone began ringing then. He looked at Saul as though unsure whether he should answer it.

“Please,” Saul said of the phone.

The teen then clicked it and placed it next to his ear. In less than five seconds and with him not saying anything, he ended the call. In that time, Saul looked at Maja as though to say ‘See?’.

To the kids, he said, “Let me guess, clear the shop?”

Gordon nodded. “Clear the shop. Make sure you stay here.”

“How are you gonna do that?”

“We only need to hold off a minute.”

“A minute huh,” Saul said. Maja could see he was gearing up for a fight. He had that look in his eye that measured his opponents, while Gordon and Finneran, though likely on the losing end, had determination on theirs. They now stepped away from their booth and formed two points on Saul’s left and right.

This was happening. This wasn’t a dream. Maja clapped her hands, which succeeded in bringing everyone’s attention to her, including the children who hadn’t yet finished their ice creams.

“We’re now closed for the day. I’m sorry. If you could just leave…”

But rather than stand up and leave, they exchanged looks, wondering if the announcement was real. Surely, customers took priority over everything here, and they weren’t really being made to leave when they didn’t want to yet. Maja would have done something drastic then, like wave around the knife she was holding, but she didn’t want to needlessly traumatize the children in the shop. Then again, they might be more traumatized if a fight did actually break out here.

She pressed her thumb on the knife instead. Another wound. And the last one had just healed. She sighed.

Behind her, she could hear Olive coming back. She said, “What’s going on?” when she was standing right next to her. 

“You have to go.”

Olive studied the scene before her—the customers, the ‘daddy’ who was now staring down two teens, Maja’s knife and her now bleeding thumb. When her next question came, it sounded more like a suspicion.

“Why?”

But Maja didn’t need to explain. Saul bent down to pull up his right pantleg and, from his boot, he took out a knife. Then he straightened up but didn’t point it to anyone, yet. In response, the two boys made some flourish in taking their jackets off to reveal shoulder sheaths housing their own knives which they pulled out and also held down their sides.

“Oh,” Olive said beside her. “I have to go.”

“Yeah.”

The customers were convinced too. They began rushing to the door, leaving the ice creams which wasn’t worth whatever was about to happen here. In a flurry of footsteps and rising whispers, the shop was suddenly empty.

“Is that a minute yet?” Saul said.

She didn’t know how conceited he can be. And it wasn’t even called for because he hadn’t done anything yet and the boys had succeeded in keeping them here within that minute. Meanwhile, the blood from her thumb was making a line through the blunt side of the knife before dropping to the floor.

With the shop empty, it seemed bigger. But in terms of people about to have a fight, there really wasn’t that much room. The boys finally raised their knives at Saul who, for some reason, changed his mind about his and put it back in his boot.

What the fuck was he doing? He really was full of himself.

She shook her head. She realized then that she could leave. She wasn’t planning on going with Saul and she shouldn’t be concerned if he got caught or not. And yet, her feet never moved. Instead, she smeared a little of her blood to each of her eyelids, before letting more of it drop on the floor. She would have begun a chant just then, but…

…it happened too fast for her to follow. As far as she knew, both the boys lunged at Saul at the same time. But Saul didn’t look surprised at all. He simply stepped to his left toward Gordon, catching the hand that held the knife, and pulling at the same time so that the boy was suddenly in front of him, blocking him from the other kid, Finneran, who ended up stabbing Gordon instead. The knife got lodge just below Gordon’s right shoulder.

 _Okay, so not holding a knife made sense_ , Maja thought, even as she remained rooted to the spot, stunned into simply watching this happen. There was the sound of metal hitting the floor as Saul further twisted Gordon’s arm until he let go of the knife. Then Saul was pushing him to Finneran, both kids ending up on the floor. How could someone move that fast?

“Sasha!” he called then.

The name snapped her back to focus and she remembered the chant she was supposed to speak. Only, Saul was now rushing to her side and telling her, “backdoor.”

At the same time, she saw Andreas and another man right outside, about to go in. So, instead of hurrying to where Saul wanted to go, she held her ground and said the three words she meant to say.

The shop began to go dim.

She repeated the words as Andreas went in, a sword in his right and a knife on his left. The kid, Finneran, minding his friend Gordon who continued to moan on the floor, looked up and wondered what was going on with the shop.

The pink neon lights announcing the name Scoopery on the wall flickered and turned dead. The bulbs in the ice cream display died. Any artificial lights were unceremoniously turned off. But that didn’t account for the level of darkness that descended in the shop. Outside, the sun continued to beam a late afternoon shine. But inside, the third time she repeated the words, the place was plunged into pitch black.

“Sasha,” Saul whispered beside her as he grabbed her arm.

She could still see him, but it wasn’t really a physical kind of seeing. That wasn’t what bothered her. It was the fact that he kept calling her Sasha. Also, he had found her hand and was now pulling it as though he knew the way out.

By the door, Andreas yelled, “Saul!” then threw a knife to where he thought Saul would be.

It would have hit his arm, but Maja pulled him out of the way so the knife ended up wedged on the wall.

“Come on,” she said and was dragging him to the back of the store while a voice inside her head berated her for not leaving him there. He was only slowing her down, bumping into things on their way out, bumping into her.

She told herself that she’ll just lead him out. That was it.

Out the backdoor, there was normal sunlight. Saul blinked a couple of times, blinded temporarily, but upon adjusting, their roles changed and he was now leading her somewhere.

She should let go. She had led him out and now they could go on their separate ways. She should make this clear with him. But she let herself be pulled to where he wanted, which apparently was outside the alley and into another street. He was fishing out keys from his pocket as they neared an old pickup that badly needed cleaning. He clicked the key and the car beeped, its headlights winking at them.

Saul let go of her hand to get around the driver seat, while Maja remained where she was, staring at the car.

“Get in!” came Saul’s exasperated voice.

She looked at him as he stood next to the open car door, noting his frustration at the wait.

For some reason, her feet did move in the direction of the car and she found herself opening the passenger side door then sitting inside.

///

They drove with the windows down and the not quite fresh air streaming in. Adquistes was a huge city and its wide highways matched it. Cars would have zinged by if not for the traffic, which wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great either. They’ve been driving steadily for the last twenty minutes, neither of them having said a word. Maja was looking out the window, trying to grapple with decisions she wasn’t sure she could stand by or should, while Saul concentrated on the road.

She would rather have the dreams. They weren’t real but they somehow made more sense, and no matter how horrific it got, she could always wake up and the world could tilt back to its proper axis again. Sitting here with him, her world was askew. She felt frayed and there was a compulsion that made her want to both jump out of the car and stay in it, rendering her unable to do anything. She touched the buckle of her seatbelt, which he must have noticed but didn’t say anything about. Where would she go anyway? They were in the middle of the highway. On the side of the road were trees that were lush and deep, but eventually gave way to towering buildings which marred the skies; she felt dizzy just looking at them. She could disappear again. She had done it before.

But how did Andreas even find her? Was it because she forgot to color her hair brown? It can’t be just that. More importantly, how did Saul? And why?

As though reading her mind, Saul said, “I got word that they’re looking for you. I had to get you out of there.”

“Got word how?”

“I have a source,” he shrugged as though this was common enough.

“Were you there yesterday too?”

He didn’t answer, which was answer enough. She knew she wasn’t seeing things. She had so many questions, but they clashed with the urgency of how fast the car was going, putting miles between her and her temporary home in Adquistes, farther and farther the longer she stayed with him. But it wasn’t like she could get back there. The place was compromised.

All too soon, they were veering off the highway and plowing narrower streets. At first, they passed by apartment buildings tucked between shops and restaurants, similar to the street Maja was staying at. But as Saul continued to navigate the car, they found themselves in quieter and quieter neighborhoods, until it looked like they were in the suburbs. The rundown kind.

“Where are we going?”

“Meeting my source. His name’s Madden. Hale Madden. He’s from Alfea.”

“Oh, goodie.” She couldn’t care less. She turned to stare at him while he kept his eye on the road. “I don’t understand, Saul. I just don’t understand. I told you to leave me alone. Why are you here?”

“I just said, people are looking for you.”

“Yes, me. They’re looking for _me_. Why are _you_ here?”

He sighed. Well, less a sigh, more a huff. “If it wasn’t for me, they’d have you already.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m not completely helpless, you know. I’m not some maiden in need of saving.”

“I’m not saying— look, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. What you should be asking is why they’re after you.”

“I will, in a minute. Tell me this first, how did you find me?”

“We’re here,” he said. With that, he parked the car on the curb and they were suddenly stopped. How convenient.

But he didn’t get out right away, nor prod her to go. They sat in the car, silent again. She didn’t know what he was waiting for. On her part, he still hadn’t answered her question. So, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”

“They’re not looking for me anymore, at least the Alfeans aren’t. They’re putting everything into finding you. There’s something going on and I wanna find out what it is.”

It sounded convincing enough. But there was something in the way he said it that made it seem that there was some other reason.

As though aware of this, he added, “Maybe I just couldn’t help myself. Maybe I saw how cute you were in that scooper uniform and I just had to go in and be a hero.”

She glared at him. 

Seemingly aware that he’d made a miscalculation with that, Saul wiped the hint of mischief off his face. “I don’t know what it is you want me to say.”

Her voice rose when she said, “How about the truth!”

“I guarantee you, you wouldn’t wanna hear the truth.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Do you want to meet my guy or not? Because we’re wasting time.”

She ground her teeth, knowing that this conversation was utterly superfluous to the matter at hand. And he was right, her priorities seemed to be all screwed up, focusing on his presence rather than the fact that people had just shown up in her place of work and tried to take her. But it was his fault she was incapable of rational thought at the moment. If she could just get away from him…

“Fuck it.” She then unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door.

They plodded through a quiet little neighborhood, heading into a house that looked like it hadn’t been lived in it for at least a decade. The roof looked ready to give way, the walls were dilapidated, paint peeling off, graffitied with letters and symbols she didn’t understand. But, other than that, the door seemed to be sturdy enough and the windows were unexpectedly unbroken, all shut tight, curtains closed.

Saul knocked and said, “It’s me.”

They heard movement inside, someone peering through one of the windows, the curtain showing the smallest gap. Then the door swung open.

They were ushered in by someone who looked at least two decades younger than her and whom she could only assume to be Hale Madden.

She turned to Saul. “So, when you said he’s from Alfea, you meant a student?”

But then, she noticed that there was someone else in the house. Sitting by the couch was a guy about the same age as Madden. At the sight of them, he stood up, his blonde head towering above them, his eyes unwavering at they stared at Saul, looking like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. 

“What are you doing here?” Saul said.

“I had to bring him,” Madden explained. “He found the phone. He said he’d tell everyone that I’m in contact with you if I didn’t bring him.”

“Saul…” Sky took a step toward him, voice soft as though mesmerized. “I knew you weren’t dead,” he said before pulling him in for a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to insert something in chapter 6, referring to that broken bottle in the first scene here. But, to those who've already read chapter 6 before the edit, it's a tiny thing and won't really affect the story; it's just for continuity. I'll explain in chapter 8.


End file.
